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BRYANT CENTENNIAL 
CUMMINGTON 



AUGUST THE SIXTEENTH 

1894 



NOVEMBER THE THIRD 

1794 



NOVEMBER THE THIRD 
1894 



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Clark W. Bryan Co. PiJiNTERS, 
SpniNGFiEiiD, Mass. 



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TO JULIA S. BRYANT 



TO THE READER. 



No word of introduction can add to the beauty or completeness 
of the tributes contained in this little volume. To many of the 
present generation, Bryant is still a gracious memory, but when 
the time shall arrive, in which his name and work is only a tradi- 
tion to the inhabitants of his native town, and another centenary 
is reached, the curious antiquary or the devoted pilgrim, who seeks 
the spot where the first centennial was remembered, may wish to 
trace its landmarks, and some record of it may then be found 
needful. 

At the annual town meeting it was voted to observe the hun- 
dredth anniversary of Bryant's birth by a literary festival, and a 
committee of five of the citizens was appointed to carry out this 
design. 

The occasion was unique, not many days of the kind having 
been celebrated, for Bryant's birth marked the beginning of Ameri- 
can Poetry, and American Literature was still in its childhood one 
hundred years ago. The day chosen was August sixteenth, as the 
pleasant summer time was deemed more suitable for an outdoor 
gathering, than the day of November on which the poet was born, 
which is often bleak and forbidding in its aspect. The spot selected 
had already become historic, for the poet and his brothers had 
traced, upon the trees around, rude hieroglyphics in years long past. 

In a maple grove northwest of the Bryant homestead, where the 
younger children were born and all were reared, a central platform 
was raised and surrounded by seats rising from the front in the 



form of an amphitheater. Upon a hickory tree, around which the 
platform was built, a lithograph portrait of Bryant was hung, en- 
circled with wreaths and adorned with pendant sumac boughs. 
Around a table, banked with golden-rod and asters, were grouped 
some of America's most distinguished men of letters, who had 
come from far places to honor the memory of one who was one of 
America's first citizens as well as Cummington's foremost son. 
Nature smiled upon the day and the event, which was made mem- 
orable by the number of people who were present, — about five 
thousand climbing from all points, and from the towns in the dis- 
tant valleys, to this remote hilltop. At ten o'clock a bird's-eye 
view would have presented a novel sight, when every approach, as 
far as the eye could see, was filled with slowly moving vehicles, 
until nearly a thousand had arrived, from the modern tally-ho to 
the improvised farm wagon, its sides trimmed with hemlock boughs. 
Through the arched entrance, trimmed with evergreens, the ex- 
pectant crowd passed quickly to the grove, filling the seats, while 
some hundreds grouped themselves around these. The clouds 
lightly floating above and the sunlight glinting through the foliage 
upon the upturned faces, made the scene not only picturesque but 
impressive. The presence of the one surviving brother of the 
poet, and his only remaining daughter, added interest to the occa- 
sion, and the choice of his son-in-law as president of the day gave 
added dignity to the anniversary, which in itself was of the greatest 
interest to the people of this region. After the memorial address 
and songs, the people scattered in groups, to partake of their 
basket lunches. Some sought the " Rivulet," some the " Entrance 
to the Wood," or other haunts which suggested the lines of the 
poet, and the holiday aspect was in keeping with the simplicity and 
naturalness of the poet's life. 



7 

The dinner for the two hundred invited guests was served in the 
apple orchard nearly opposite the spacious barns, in the green 
carpeted passages formed by the rows of trees. After the colla- 
tion had been served, again the people gathered in the grove to 
listen to the addresses of the afternoon, given in a somewhat 
lighter vein than those of the morning, interspersed with appro- 
priate music, and at five o'clock the multitude departed with pleas- 
ant memories of this day of days, and we whose glad "privilege it 
was to execute the wishes of the townspeople, hasten to make this 
lasting record before swift-footed time shall render such a work 
impossible. 



MY NATIVE VALE. 

There stands a dwelling in a peaceful vale, 

With sloping hills and waving woods around, 
Fenced from the blast. There never ruder gale 

Bows the tall grass that covers all the ground ; 
And planted shrubs are there, and cherished flowers. 
And brightest verdure born of gentle showers. 

'Twas there my young existence was begun ; 

My earliest sports were on its flowery green ; 
And often, when mj' schoolboy task was done, 

I climbed its hills to view the pleasant scene, 
And stood and gazed till the sun's setting ray 
Shone on the height — the sweetest of the day. 

There, when that hour of mellow light was come, 
And mountain shadows cooled the ripened grain, 

I saw the weary yeoman plodding home 
In the lone path that winds across the plain. 

To rest his limbs, and watch his child at pla}' 

And tell him o'er the labors of the day. 

And when the woods put on their autumn glow, 

And the bright sun shone in among the trees. 
And leaves were gathered in the den below. 

Swept softly from the hillside by the breeze, 
I wandered, till the starlight, on the stream. 
At length awoke me from my fairy dream. 

Ah ! happy days, too happy to return, 

Fled on the wings of youth's departed years ; 
A bitter lesson has been mine to learn. 

The truth of life, its labors, pains and fears. 
Yet does the memory of my boyhood stay, 
A twilight of the brightness passed away. 

My thoughts steal back to that dear dwelling still, 
Its flowers and peaceful shades before me rise ; 

The play-place and the prospect from the hill. 
Its summer verdure and autumnal dyes ; 

The present brings its storms, but, while they last 

I shelter seek in the delightful past. 

John Howard Bryant. 



iS "V „*."' •": 7r ■ 




PROGRAMME 



Wednesday Evening, 

AT 7.30 o'clock. 

Children's Memorial Exercises by the Bryant School and others at the 
Congregational Church. 

Thursday Morning, 
AT 10 o'clock. 



March, " Washington Post," 

orchestra. 

PRAYER. 



.Souza. 



Anthem, " Sing ye Jehovah's praises." 

Address of Welcome, . . Lorenzo H. Tower. 

Address by President, .... Parke Godwin. 

Memorial Address. .... Edwin R. Brown. 

Duet, " O deem not they are blest alone," 

Julie A. Shaw, Henrietta S. Nahmer. 



READINO. ..AMo^-dy.^„ . . . 

Chorus, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic' 



John H. Bryant. 



PROGRAMME 

Thursday Afternoon, 

AT 2 o'clock. 

March, "Old Homestead," ... 
orchestra. 
Reading of Letters by thk Secretary. 
Chorus, " A Forest Retreat." 

ADDRESSES. 

Hon. John Bigelow, 

Julia Ward Howe, 

Charles Dudley' Warner. 
Duet, " Old Friends are the Truest," 

John W. Hutchinson, E. Lester Rrown. 

Reading, At Eighty-seven, /. . . . John H. Bryant. 

ADDRESSES. 
Prof. Charles E. Norton, 

Rev. John W. Chadwick, 

George W. Cable. 
Chorus, "The Oaks," . . . . . . Verdi. 

ADDRESSES. 
Pres. G. Stanley Hall, 

A. M. Howe, Esq., 

Henry .S. Gere. 



INVOCATION. 

By Rev. John White Chadwick. 

." Blessings be on them and eternal praise, 

Who gave us nobler lives and nobler cares ; 

The poets who on earth have made us heirs 

Of truth and puie delight by heavenly lays." 

O Thou who art the life and heart of all this breathing world ; 
we come together in a temple made by Thine own hands, to thank- 
fully remember one who looked through Nature up to Thee, who 
found Thy visible presence in the strength of Thy eternal hills, 
Thy beauty in the trees and streams. Thy voice in the deep breath- 
ings of the storm, and in the silence of the night. 

We thank Thee for the songs he sung, and that he made his life 
a great and noble poem, epical with a lofty purpose, and lyrical 
with many tender passages of love and home. 

We are glad and thankful for those happy influences which issued 
from his life and work, opening our eyes to see the beauty and our 
hearts to feel the wonder of the fair and perfect world, and plead- 
ing with us to make ourselves the servants of all high causes, even 
such as make for the enlightenment and exaltation of our individual 
and common life. We thank Thee, O God, for all Thy poets who 
by their song have cheered and glorified our human lot, and 
especially for that noble company in our own land, of which our 
own Bryant was the eldest brother and of which one only now 
remains. 

Very tenderly would we think of him to-day, desiring for him 
every blessing that belongs to the old age of one who has so often 
with sweet, guileless laughter cheered our burdened hearts. May 
this time of grateful recollection consecrate us, each and all, to a 
more wise and serious affection for the great things of nature and 
of art, and a more serene devotion to the welfare of our fellow-men. 



12 

We offer Thee, O God, these thanks and these desires with some- 
thing of that proud humility which befits the children of Thy 
house. Amen. 

After the invocation an orchestra of stringed instruments, ac- 
companied by an organ, performed one of Sousa's marches, which 
was followed by the anthem, " Sing ye Jehovah's praises," ren- 
dered by a local chorus. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

By Lorenzo H. Tower. 

It was thought that a short address of welcome by a native resi- 
dent of the town would be expected in accordance with the usual 
custom on occasions like this. It would seem proper that the 
host's welcome should be by deeds, not words, and a proper prepa- 
ration to receive his guests. If this has been done, words of wel- 
come are unnecessary ; if neglected, any address, however eloquent, 
would be of no account. In applying this test, due consideration 
of the ability of the host and the number and wants of his guests 
should be kept in mind. Ours is a small mountain town, contain- 
ing eight hundred souls all told, remote from the principal lines of 
travel, with limited hotel accommodations; and with the expecta- 
tion that every home would be filled with personal and family 
friends, the prospect was not good for a successful result to-day. 

With these and other disabilitities may we not indulge the hope 
that you will be charitable with our shortcomings. The welcome 
that Cummington extends to you to-day is substantially the same 
as greeted the embryo poet one hundred years ago. That the peo- 
ple are the same in kind is proven by the fact that of the two 
hundred voters in town but three are of foreign birth ; the quality 
may have deteriorated, as the flower of our sons and daughters 
have gone forth to enrich other communities, nearly every home 
having furnished its full quota. There are but few of us left, but 
these few are willing to stand up and be counted. 

Of the families that have lived at the Bryant Homestead for the 
last one hundred years, the first sent forth five sons and one daugh- 
ter to make their homes outside of the town ; of these but one 
remains to be with us to-day. Of the second, three sons and one 
daughter sought other homes, and from this family two are here 
to meet old friends. From the third, one daughter by adoption is 
with us to-day. This is perhaps an exceptional case, but it shows 



14 

the tendency of the population to leave the hill towns. Many 
homes have been abandoned, and their location is marked by a 
hollow in the ground where once was a cellar. In some parts of 
the town it is possible to find as many of these as of homes. 

The occupation of the people is the same as of old, living wide 
apart to cultivate the soil, that is none too free with its return for 
the labor that is bestowed upon it. 

The Westfield flows through its narrow valley ; the little villages 
nestle by its side as in the past ; the amphitheater of hills and val- 
leys that girt the eastern horizon are the same that Bryant's first 
conscious vision looked upon ; the little brooks still murmur 
through their narrow glens ; the groves, the darker woods, the 
sunny slopes where wild flowers bloom, all are here still to inspire 
other poets. The home that sheltered our poet from infancy to 
early manhood, the home to which he turned when fortune had 
smiled and the frost of age was upon hair and beard, making of it 
a fit place to spend a short season each year to renew his acquaint- 
ance with nature "through her visible forms," free from the cares 
of an exacting profession. 

To all of these we welcome you ; without these nothing we could 
say or do would be worthy of a moment's consideration by you. 

May we not hope that when time has softened your remembrance 
of the discomforts and fatigue of the journey, you may not wholly 
regret that in 1894 you made the pilgrimage to Cummington, to the 
home of Bryant, one of the best of his race, one of the poets of 
the world. 



REMARKS 

Of J. W. GuRNEY, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements on Opening 
the Exercises at the Bryant Centennial Celebration. 

Ladies and Gentkmeti : 

We have assembled here this beautiful summer morning to cele- 
brate the hundredth anniversary of an event that has made this 
historic ground. These valleys, these wooded hills, the little spark- 
ling rivulet that goes leaping and laughing down the mountain side, 
have all been immortalized by the pen of Bryant. Some one living 
in what he imagined to be a more favored region has slightingly 
remarked that all our " New England hills were good for was to help 
hold the world together; that their principal productions were ice 
and granite." 

Well, I have always believed they pla\-ed an important part in 
the earth's make-up, and they furnish plenty of ice and granite for 
home consumption, and yet they boast grander products. We raise 
men and women who are constantly going out from us, taking with 
them New England's best gifts, virtue, intelligence and industry. 

New England's hills, old earth's mainstay — 

Steadfast and reliant — 
Let it forever be their boast 

I'hat they produced a Bryant. 

My friends, you have gathered here from many sections of our 
great country, to unite with us in honoring the name and memory 
of Cummington's noblest son, and as the centuries follow each 
other down time's calendar, the people of Cummington will ever 
cherish the memory of William Cullen Bryant. But the name of 
Bryant is not the heritage of Cummington alone ; it is the birth- 
right of every American citizen, and in arranging the programme 
of these exercises we have not confined ourselves to any section, 



IG 

or been restrained by any boundary lines. We are exceedingly 
fortunate in having with us to-day a gentleman whose intimate 
social and business relations with Mr. Bryant for many years make 
it eminently fitting that he should take a prominent part in these 
exercises. I now have the distinguished honor of introducing to 
you Mr. Parke Godwin, as president of the day. 




Parke Godwin, President of the Day. 



ADDRESS. 

Ey President Parke Godwin. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Dr. Samuel Johnson said that " the man is little to be envied 
whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of Marathon, 
or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona." 

He meant by this that localities acquire by mere historic asso- 
ciation a power which stirs the minds and hearts of men to their 
fountains. Such a locality is this, and assuredly, no American can 
visit these hills without feeling his whole nature exalted by the 
consciousness that here one of the first and most eminent of Ameri- 
can poets, one of the first and most energetic of American citizens, 
William Cullen Bryant, was born. It was here, a hundred years 
ago, that his infant eyes first opened to the light of the heavens ; 
here that his childish limbs first tottered among the flowers of the 
earth, and here that he first played upon the banks of the rivulet, 
which prattled from grove to grove while he cropped the violets 
from its brim, and listened to the brown thrush's vernal hymn. It 
was here that he turned his first artless notes to the whisper of the 
wind, or to the song of the birds ; it was here, amid this scenery, 
which combines so much that is grand with so much that is beauti- 
ful, that he imbibed that love of nature which made him, in after 
life, her most faithful painter, knowing every tree, every flower, every 
spire of grass, every sound of the winged tribes, and every play of 
the winds among the trees, every aspect of the seasons, the luxuriant 
fullness of summer, the melancholy yet many-colored decay of 
autumn, and even the charm of winter, when the bleak blast dis- 
robes the forests, and oceans of snow had almost drowned the 
landscape, but the sunrises and sunsets were yet as glorious as any 
of Italy, and the delicate fingers of the frost built in the woods its 
palaces of amethyst and topaz. It was here, lying before the even- 



18 

ing birch fire, that he read the Bible and Shakespeare, Homer as 
Pope gives him, and Cowper and Wordsworth ; it was here, among 
the thickets, that he shouted to his brotliers grand lines from the 
Iliad or the CEdipus Tyrrannus ; it was here that he heard from the 
lips of veterans who had taken part in the strife, the stories of 
Bunker Hill and Concord and Trenton and Saratoga ; it was here 
that he caught the first bitterness of politics, as thundered around 
the name of Jefferson, and it was here that he learned the better 
lessons taught by nature's "sweet and gentle ministrations." 

It was from this place went forth the first articulate poetic utter- 
ance of the great soul of the western world, Thanatopsis, grave and 
sombre in its theme suggested by the immense and impenetrable 
solitude of the wilderness around, where the silent work of death 
is ever going on, as it has been from the beginning and will be to 
the end of lime, but treated with such rare depth and breadth of 
thought, with such brilliancy of imagination and with such an 
organ flow of music, it has captivated the universal human mind 
and imbedded and enshrined itself in immortal memory. Thana- 
topsis was the morning star of our poetic dawn, opening the way 
to the broader day that was to follow ; but in the flush and efful- 
gence of a broader light, but still holding its place in the skies as 
a luminary that is destined never to set. 

But the mere active life of Mr. Bryant was not passed amid 
these solitudes which, while they nourished his genius by their 
many appeals to the imagination, to fanc}^, to reverence and to 
thought, could not supply his more practical needs. He must go 
into the larger world which lay beyond their summits, and sad was 
the hour when he was compelled to leave them. It was in the 
early winter of the year when alone, without prosperity and almost 
without friends, he took his way up yonder steep road to Plainfield, 
to enter the unknown yet inviting vortex of actual combat. His 
heart was despondent, but a lustrous sunset suffused the mountains 
and he saw a solitary bird making its flight through the desert and 
illimitable air, to its far home among the reeds, and he thought 



19 

■" There is a Power whose care teaches thy way along that pathless 
coast/' and it came to him as a solace and support, that 

" He who from zone to zone 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone 
Will lead my steps aright." 

And that Power did lead him aright when he was launched upon 
that vast ocean of struggle and turmoil and toil which is ever 
seething in the metropolis of a nation. 

I was much impressed some years ago in an interview with John 
Bright, when he told me that he " never went to bed without read- 
ing some of the poets, to lure his mind away from the distrac- 
tions of Parliament — which is often a cockpit — and to invigorate 
his imagination," and he added, " I read your poets in prefer- 
ence to ours, not because they are greater poets, but because 
they are greater citizens. Your Bryant, your Emerson, your Long- 
fellow, your Whittier, and your Lowell take part in the common 
life of the nation, and all are better poets because they are com- 
pleter men." 

Their inspiration comes not from the society in which they 
live, and has the freshness and impulse of libert}^, nature and the 
present age. 

This was particularly true of Mr. Bryant, who from his childhood 
to his old age mingled in the active life of the public. From the 
time in which he sang his crude Fourth of July odes and as a boy 
satirized Jefferson, to the time in which he upheld the arms of 
Lincoln during the war, and deplored his death in a dirge, whose 
words like flight of angels lulled our aching hearts, he held it to 
be one of his first duties to participate in all the movements which 
influenced the politics of the state. He went down into the arena 
and grappled with the fighters. But in every struggle he kept his 
eye steadily fixed on certain ideas, which like the Star of the Pole 
keeps its old unvarying station. Other stars rise and set, or file 
away in glittering trains, to sink ultimately behind the horizon, but 
that star is the unfailing guide of the half-wrecked mariner when his 



20 

compass is lost, and assures the steps of those who stray in darkest 
wastes by night. To Mr. Bryant, that guiding star was his convic- 
tion of duty to the development and good of the individual man. 

He was no doctrinaire, for he always pursued even ideal ends 
through actual available means, but one trust seemed clearer to 
him than any other and that was that the aim of all religion, of all 
morals, of all social progress was the elevation and upraising of 
man to the full dignity of his nature. And he inferred that such, 
should be the final aim of all politics. 

Mr. Bryant was the advocate from the beginning of his public 
career of perfect freedom of speech and of assembly ; he was the 
enemy, from the beginning, of that hideous system of slavery 
which had got the nation in its clutch, and he was ever the sedu- 
lous, considerate and irrepressible opponent of that other system 
of industrial servitude, which under the pretext of general protec- 
tion fosters special trades, monopolies and trusts, lures a pernicious 
immigration and prepares the way for division of classes and 
anarchical outbreaks and bloodshed. In the defense of these 
views Mr. Bryant was cast into the furnace of debate, where his 
sensitive, nervous organization suffered severely, but he controlled 
himself with moderation and contributed as much as any other 
one man to the triumph of liberal principles, in the release of his- 
fellow-men from a degrading bondage. In these efforts he was in 
advance of his day, for the battle is not yet won ; but he lived to 
see an emancipated race, a regenerated union, and the republic of 
his love, the mightiest power upon earth and destined to be mightier,, 
as the freedom which he advocated shall extend its benificent arms 
to broader circles of activity. 

It is not my province, upon this occasion, to speak in detail of 
this public career, which w^as at once so eminent and so exemplary.. 
That theme has been reserved for other and more eloquent lips. 
But as it has been the one great good fortune of my life to be as- 
sociated with Mr. Bryant privately for more than fifty years, I can- 
not refrain from saying a word of what I deem greater than the 
poet, greater than the publicist, greater than the patriot, and that 



21 



is the source and substance of all the rest — the man. As a brother 
poet, Whittier, has written : — 

" We praise not no,v the poet's art, 
The rounded beauty of his song ; 
Who weighs him from his life apart, 
Must do his nobler nature wrong." 

Every day that I saw him, whether in his domestic circle, or 
amid the vicissitudes of trying public contests (and he lived 
through the terrible battle era of the Republic), added to my esti- 
mate of his completeness as a human being. Modest he was with 
the shyness of the sensitive young girl who like a violet had passed 
the days in silence and shade; humble he was with the humility of 
one who asked no applause from his fellows, and disinterested to 
the part of an almost absolute self-negation ; and3'et with so strong 
a sense of self-respect, so earnest a worship of truth, so unswerv- 
ing a fidelity to his convictions, that he feared no enmity, no 
calumny, no loss of ease or fame, in the discharge of what he 
deemed his duty. A world in arms against him had no terrors 
for his simple soul. 

Mr. Bryant was deemed by many to be cold in his manner, even 
to chilliness. Among strangers he was singularly reserved. But 
once you broke through this atmosphere of reticence, you found 
in the inside the genial humorist who loved fun, the warm-hearted 
comrade, and a keen sympathizer with all sorts of human suffering 
and sorrow. 

His affections were not demonstrative, but they were sincere and 
profound. To his children he was the cheerful companion, and 
they loved him none the less because of their reverence for him. 
•One affection indeed ran like a silver lining through all the tissues 
of his being, from the time when first he met his Fanny, 

" The fairest of the rural maids 
Whose birth was in the forest shades." 

All his personal attachments, though slow in their formation, 
once formed were like hooks of steel. He never abandoned a 
friend ; he never, if he could help it, misjudged an enemy. Once 



22 

when he had been severely calumniated by a newspaper opponent 
he said to me, " Will you not answer that fellow ? I dislike him so 
much I may do him an injustice." His purse was ever open to a 
charity; not always, in the exuberance of his pity, judicious. 
Hundreds were uniting to say, when he was gone, that their saintly 
providence was lost. I do not know in history a more impressive 
picture than that which is furnished by the old age of Mr. Bryant 
gliding " in long serenity away." In easy circumstances, the ac- 
knowledged patriarch of our literature, the idol not merely of 
friends, but of a wide public, every day he gave to some honorable 
or useful occupation, to a translation of Homer, to a patriotic ad- 
dress, to a cheery feast to the children of the village, to a great 
meeting for the furtherance of human welfare, to a letter of en- 
couragement to some struggling young author, or to the reading 
and review of some good recent books. A friend at Roslyn, who 
walked with him on his last Sunday on earth, says : 

" I turned to take my leave and saw him standing bareheaded in 
the sun, his face towards the sparkling waters of the bay, his white 
locks and beard just moved by the passing breeze and he looking 
like one of the bards of the Bible, in the rapture of devotion ; or 
better still as an image of Homer himself listening to the murmur- 
ing waves of his own blue ^gean." 

Mr. Bryant died in his eighty-fourth year, and the last words that 
he uttered in public were in aspiration for the coming of that uni- 
versal religion and soul liberty when the rights and dislikes of 
human brotherhood shall be acknowledged by all the races of 
mankind. 

The chief address of the day was given by Edwin R. Brown,, 
one of Cummington's sons, who was especially fitted by good liter- 
ary taste and judgment and the associations of many years, to per- 
form this delicate and important task. 




Edwin R. Brown, Orator of the Day. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

By Edwin R. Brown. 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

" I stand upon my native hills again, 

Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky 

With garniture of waving grass and grain, 
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie, 

While deep the sunless glens are scooped between. 
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen. 

" This mountain wind ! most spirilual thing of all 
The wide earth knows ; when, in the sultry time 

He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall 
He seems the breath of a celestial clime ! 

As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow 
Health and refreshment on the world below." 

"Perfect love casteth out fear." Otherwise how should I find 
courage to speak in such a presence as graces this platform this 
morning 1 I am not here to speak to you as a literatus at all, but 
rather to talk with you from the standpoint of that great public 
which has never ranged far in the nourishing fields of literature, 
but which long ago learned to love Bryant and to feel its indebt- 
edness to him for eyes to see the face and ears to hear the voice 
of nature. 

To-day the fountains of joy and tears lie side by side and their 
waters intermingle. Our tears sparkle with joy and our rejoicing 
is pathetic. Salutation quickly turns to valediction, for to most of 
us this occasion will be a dissolving view of these dear scenes, 
where cluster and twine the memories of delightful years. 

We are gathered here from distant states, and from over sea, for 
mutual congratulation, while we look across one of those broad 
billows of time that we call centuries, and recall the life of Cum- 
mington's foremost son, a wonderful life in a wonderful century. 
Of the group of large-brained and stout-hearted brothers and 



24 

sisters of whom William Cullen Bryant was the bright particular 
star, all were born amid these rural scenes, and here they passed 
their youth. They scattered widely in their life work, but as time 
thinned their numbers and whitened their locks, you have seen the 
decreasing group returning here in summer days, venerable white- 
bearded druids, seeking their early forest haunts and re-living the 
days of youth. Now there remains of them all '■' on this bank and 
shoal of time " one onl}^, to join in our commemoration, only one, 
a solitary picturesque and pathetic figure, the last of a splendid 
generation. 

The chief of that group found well-earned fame and fortune in 
the great metropolis ; the rest with their feet planted on the fair 
prairies of Illinois and their heads in the wide upper currents of 
free thinking and noble living, grew straight and tall and strong. 
The inevitable reaper has spared us John Howard Bryant, and 
thank Heaven he is with us to-day in a fair state of health. " Full 
of days " and good works, honored and beloved, he carries off his 
eighty-seven years with brain unscathed and a brave and cheerful 
spirit. " Winter is on his head, but eternal sunshine is in his 
heart." Long may his departure be delayed ! 

I see in this gathering little of the Cummington of old. The 
honored and beloved, the tried and true of the old days are mostly 
sleeping under the mountain turf. But the well-remembered out- 
line of the grand old hills and vales remains as it was when the 
" Inscription '' was written for the entrance to yonder wood. These 
venerable beeches, too, on whose mottled bark the poet carved his 
name eighty-five or ninety years ago, still lift their green crowns in 
regal glory high into the sweet mountain air. 

The people of this region may well cherish their great poet's 
memory, for there is not a rustic homestead, a bird of the woods, a 
gurgling brook, or a murmuring pine on all these solitary hills that 
has not its added dower of beauty from his immortal words. " He 
gave these glory and made them dear." Every farmer who mows 
the perfumed fields, or hears the summer rain pattering on the 
green flags of his corn, finds life better worth living, for the life that 



^0 

began here one hundred years ago. Much that is most precious 
here was Bryant's by right of discovery, but he has left us the keys 
to that ideal estate, for our own use and behoof forever. It is an 
estate compared with which that willed by Caesar to the citizens of 
Rome was a bagatelle. Other poets with their masks of hysteric 
joy or gaunt despair, with blaring bugles or sweetly modulated 
pipes, came and went, but to us of farm, and home, and shop the 
pageant was hollow and touched us not. 

'Then there came, from just over the summit of a past century, a 
Green Mountain youth, without bugle or banner, or misty phrase, 
singing in words as simple and sweet as the notes of the hermit 
thrush, songs of field and forest and stream, and lo, all the face of 
nature is changed ! We cannot explain this. The secret of genius 
eludes us. One thing we know, that whereas we were blind, now 
we see. 

Bryant's serene genius has thrown a charm over this mountain 
region, which makes the Westfield and the " Rivulet " sacred in 
literature like the Avon and the Doon. 

We can well imagine with what pomp and circumstance the 
ancient Greeks would have celebrated the centenary of so illus- 
trious a citizen. But we know the moderation our poet loved. 
This great and hearty, but rustic and unpretentious demonstration 
would surely have pleased him. I have no sympathy with the 
emotion-hunting spirit that runs back with literal keg and bottle to 
bring home water from the Jordan or the Rubicon. We have an 
intense interest, however, in all that lies about us here, for here the 
poet and his brothers wrought with ax and flail, and the mothers 
and sisters made ^olian music on the spinning wheel. 

Of Bryant and his " Green River " Halleck said some seventy 
years ago : — 

" Spring's loveliest flowers for many a day 
Have blossomed on his wandering way ; 
Beings of beauty and decay 

They slumber in their autumn tomb ; 
But those that grace his own Green River 

Charmed by his song from mortal doom, 
Bloom on, and will bloom on forever." 



26 

It is a great satisfaction to us who are native to this vicinity, but 
who have long dwelt in more prosaic regions, that Bryant's birth 
and early experiences were here, for to these scenes that gentle 
magician Distance lends many a tender enchantment. You know 
his birthplace just over Meeting House hill yonder, with the 
graveyard just across the road — the cradle and the grave in literal 
juxtaposition. But this farm was soon made the home, and a de- 
lightful home it was. Where else on this continent does winter 
give such a delightful privacy of storm ? Where is spring so ardent 
and gushing when she finally leaps from the lap of winter as here ? 
Where is there a June so tender ? And certainly there is no- 
where else anything quite equal to that little cluster of bewitching 
November days which you call Indian summer when the Indian 
sun-god, composing himself for his winter's sleep, fills his great 
pipe and divinely smokes away the hours, filling all the autumn 
landscape with soft blue haze. It always did seem to me that these 
hills should be the home of poetry, and that here the eagle of free- 
dom should build and keep his eyrie forever. 

While we are proud of the many distinguished honors paid to 
our beloved poet, by civic bodies and academic institutions at home 
and in foreign lands, so modestly borne by him ; proud of every 
year of his long histor}^, we to-day, meeting on the hallowed ground 
of the old homestead, will recall more fully the early life and its 
pleasing suggestions than the latter days of assured honor and 
world-wide renown. 

In a time like the present, when unrest is deep and widespread 
and the ground of social order heaves and cracks under our feet, 
it is rest and refreshment to turn to the contemplation of a charac- 
ter as serene and imperturbable as old Greylock ; to rehearse 
the words and ways of a poet, who, in his boldest flight of imagi- 
nation, never loses sight of the solid ground of fact and com- 
mon sense. 

Great men are apt to have great vices to match their intellectual 
power. When Edward Everett pronounced the eulogy of a certain 
great statesman, he was much admired for his adriotnessin avoiding 



27 

unpleasant chapters in the statesman's life ; but here we have a life 
no chapter and no line of which calls for glossing or omission. 

Bryant was a marvel, but no miracle. He was the result of high 
and favoring conditions, among which is the fact that he came of 
a line sound in physique, strong of brain, and eminent for virtue ; 
and that the perspective of his Pilgrim lineage runs back to John 
Alden and Priscilla Mullins under the bows of the Mayflower. 

Certain of the higher race qualities seem difficult of transmis- 
sion ; nevertheless according to Emerson, " by painting and repaint- 
ing them upon every individual they are at last adopted by nature 
and baked into her porcelain." Strength and integrity characterized 
the line. None of its members would answer to Elder John Le- 
land's description of a certain Berkshire county saint, of whom he 
said that " Godward he was a very good man indeed, but manward 
he was a leetle grain twistical." There was nothing even a leetle 
grain twistical in this stock. In Bryant's parentage there was a 
happy combination of Cavalier and Puritan in temperament. Dr. 
Peter Bryant, genial, scholarly, over-generous, poetic, broad-minded ; 
Mrs. Bryant, plodding, persistent, energetic, sciupulous as the laws 
of light ; what happier race mixture could be desired ? The poet's 
grandfather Snell was Abrahamic and severe in faith. He had a 
vein of humor in him, but a joke from Squire Snell was like a 
comic cherub carved on one of your old-time mica-slate tomb- 
stones. To little Cullen the " Squire " who lived in the Doctor's 
family was a cave of gloom, while his mother was his reliance, and 
his father was sunshine and inspiration. 

Dr. Bryant wisely provided appetizing and nourishing pasturage 
of books on which his children could browse at will, such as Little 
Jack, Sanford and Merton, Evenings at Home, and the like, follow- 
ing with histories, the poets and the best periodicals in which, of 
course, good Dr. Channing shone a star of the first magnitude. 
From these treasures grew the poet's early and life-long interest in 
the Greeks and in their struggles for liberty. Yonder stood the 
barn in which on rainy days the boys Austin and Cullen, with old hats, 
for helmets and plumes of tow, fought over again the battles of the 



28 

■Greeks and Trojans. The doctor's high and genial qualities drew to 
his hospitable fireside the best brains of the region, and from their 
Socratic discussions the boy poet absorbed much that no conven- 
tional school could have given him. Here was also the virgin 
forest for a playground, where his mind became stored with those 
natural images and analogies which he used with such magic effect 
in all the after years. These gave to his figures that roundness 
and life that distingviished them from the silhouette of the par- 
lor poet. 

Except for the companionship of a scholarly father, and the 
many visitors at the home, Bryant's boyhood passed like that of 
other lads in this region, though he must often have felt stirring 
within him higher thoughts and sweeter dreams than he could share 
with his rustic companions. The meager winter school, "the meet- 
ing-house solemn and cold, standing cheek by jowl with the tav- 
-ern jolly and warm, the great stage and the driver's mellow horn, 
the postrider bringing the Hampshire Gazette, militia trainings 
on Meeting-House green, raisings, huskings, apple bees and sing- 
ing schools ; these, as well as hard work, were features of the time, 
and best of all, that genuine civic " university extension," the' New 
England town meeting, that most precious institution, brought from 
the Netherlands by the Pilgrim Fathers, — the town meeting, at 
which the town, man and boy, gathered en masse, the men to dis- 
cuss and vote, and the boys to learn the meaning and methods of 
public affairs ; a model school of public business and debate. 
The March meeting was the Massachusetts House of Commons, 
and the orthodox pulpit was its House of Lords. At the last town 
•meeting I ever attended in Cummington, — and it was in the old 
Baptist meeting-house, more than forty years ago, a building of 
historic interest, sadly swept from the landscape by fire only last 
week, — we of the abolition side were defeated by a close vote, 
but when that fact was announced, Alden Tower, earnest soul of 
blessed memor}^, leaped upon a bench and shouted, 

" Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 
The eternal years of GoD are hers." 



29 



We felt instantly reassured and almost triumphant. Oh ! how 
often to the reformer harried and buffeted in the long struggle with 
ignorance and shame and wrong have those lines been the refresh- 
ing shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And such they will 
be while the language endures. I often wonder whether we should 
ever have had from Bryant a Thanatopsis or a Forest Hymn if our 
present mediocrity-making school system with its constant com- 
petitive examinations and its markings and child prizes, had been 
in vogue a hundred years ago. I do not believe we should. Far 
better was it for the boy Bryant to listen to Socratic discussions 
by his father's broad fireside, or to the nooning debates of the 
sturdy farmers as they ate their rye and Indian bread and cheese 
on the steps of the old yellow meeting-house. These discussions- 
were largely political, the majority of the people of this region, led 
by Dr. Bryant, being zealous Federalists ; as over in Cheshire they 
were almost unanimously Jeffersonians under the lead of John 
Leland. It. was the very time of which Wendell Phillips used to 
tell when Massachusetts mothers frightened their children to sleep- 
by saying " Thomas Jefferson." But the boy poet had learned to 
reason, and so though as a boy he gave his satire free rein on Jeffer- 
son and his " Embargo," in due time he became an honored leader 
of the Jeffersonian forces of the land. 

One word more about Dr. Peter Bryant. It may perhaps be said 
that in this case William CuUen comes up, like the bean in the- 
adage, bringing his father on his back ; but however that may be^ 
the doctor seems to have been a rare and noble character, fit to 
stand by the side of Thackeray's good Dr. London. His early 
death no doubt resulted from his self-sacrificing faithfulness and 
exposure in his profession. When he had talked with his fellow 
physicians and had found his own view confirmed that his months 
were few, he still went about as usual, healing, cheering, soothing^ 
and many had cause to bless him. To his family he said no sad 
word, but lived among them cheerful and tender, calm and loving,, 
though he knew the night was at hand when he should see and 
work for them no more. 



30 

No Greek or Roman matron of heroic days left a more spotless 
record of a busy life than the poet's mother. To her example he 
attributes his rigid adherence, in riper years, to the great rule of 
right without regard to persons. She was in person tall, agile and 
strong. At the age of sixty-seven she was still an expert horse- 
woman and could vault from the ground into the saddle. This 
agility and strength were characteristic of the line. Many of you 
know that the poet, even in his later rambles about the place here, 
never climbed over the stone fences, but placing his hand on the 
top, easily vaulted over. It was the poet's mother who induced her 
boys to set the good example of planting out maples and elms by 
the roadside. I wish that some man with a heart in his bosom 
would select the finest of those trees and on its breast inlay a tablet 
with the name of Sallie Snell Bryant upon it ; then let every 
thoughtful passer-by in the summer time salute its pomp and 
plentitude of green, and give it a cheerful hail even when winter 
winds howl through its branches. 

The poet's mother kept a most remarkable diary. Not such as 
most of us keep, which after the first week or two of the new year 
is left to perish of neglect, but she kept one for fift3^-three solid 
years without the break of a day. Every day has, in her own hand, 
a condensed record of weather, household work, and family and 
neighborhood events. Nothing was allowed to interfere. Com- 
pany, sickness, journeys, births, death itself made no break in this 
record. Each year has its quaint little volume, the paper being cut 
and bound by her own hands and sewed with linen thread of her 
own spinning. The poet's reticence, his steadfastness and his life- 
long care never to say the wrong word are foreshadowed in this 
diary. The Chinese have a proverb that when the wrong word 
escapes a chariot and four cannot overtake it. Neither the poet 
nor his mother allowed any such word to escape. This kind, per- 
sistent woman — described by King Lemuel long ago — in all the 
nearly twenty thousand entries of the diary, makes no complaint, 
speaks no unpleasant word of a neighbor, and utters never a sylla- 
.ble of gush. Where can this be matched ? 



31 

One entry is of especial interest on this occasion. It is not 
underscored, there are no exclamation points, yet it marks an era 
in literature, 

Nov. 3, 1794. Stormy, Wind N, E. Churned, Seven in the 
evening a son born. 

Two days later the record is : 

Nov. 5, 1794. Clear. Wind N. W, Made Austin a coat. Sat 
up all day. Went into the kitchen. Mr, Dawes died (grandfather 
of ex-Senator Dawes), 

From the record for 181 1, the year in which Thanatopsis was 
written, we find that Cullen was at Williams College, and returned 
in May and the boys go fishing, A calf was killed, but whether in 
honor of the student's return is not stated. In December, 181 1, he 
goes to Worthington to study law with Mr. Howe, and he goes 
wearing the great coat his mother cut and made for him. It also 
appears from the diary that she cut and made the brown broad- 
cloth suit which the doctor wore in the Massachusetts Senate, 
Still on and on the diary goes, till at Princeton, in the winter of 
1847 it records her fall, and the breaking of a hip, but there is no 
break in the record which tells the weather, the kindness of friends, 
the coming and going of fugitive slaves on the Underground Rail- 
road ; the last tremulous entry being made by her own hand on 
the last day of her life May ist, 1847. 
In the lines beginning, 

" The May sun sheds an amber light," 

Bryant speaks tenderly of his mother, 

" Upon the woodland's moving airs 

The small birds' mingled notes are flung, 
But she whose voice more sweet than theirs, 
Once bade me listen while they sung, 
Is in her grave 
Low in her grave." 

Some part of our poet's education was secured in the family 
of Moses Hallock in yonder hamlet of Plainfield. On the list of 
students, who from time to time studied with Mr. Hallock and 



33 

boarded in his family, on rye and Indian bread and milk (it was 
known as the " Bread and Milk College ") at the munificent rate 
of a dollar and a quarter a week, I find the names of William 
C. Bryant, Jonathan Dawes, Jonas King the missionary, John 
Brown of Harper's Ferry and Dr. Royal Joy, whose erect figure and 
calomel-loaded saddle bags were long familiar on these hills. A 
fresh impulse from some unrecognized source was given to men's 
._ minds in the early years of the present century. There was a 
revival of poetry in many lands and a liberation from old forms, 
bringing in a simpler style and a closer clinging to the breast of 
nature. In our own country New England gave us six giants of 
poetry at a birth — Bryant, Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, 
and Holmes. Across the sea there arose almost simultaneously a 
similar group — Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, and 
Tennyson. Of the American group all were born in this little 
heaven-favored state of Massachusetts, except Longfellow, and he 
quickly made the Bay State his home. A poet is not necessarily 
an abnormal and improvident being. All the American group 
came of sound and well-regulated families and all had charming 
households of their own. All were tested by the Ithuriel spear of 
the slavery question and all proved stanch and true. All were re- 
ligious and sang and lived that elder and eternal religion that is 
always true, while theologies and mythologies pass away. We are 
therefore not surprised to find them all reaching a good old age, — 
Lowell seventy-two, Longfellow seventy-five, Emerson eighty,. 
Bryant eighty-four, Whittier eighty-six, and one. Dr. Holmes, 
wearing as evenly as the " One Hoss Shay," lingers " the last leaf 
upon the tree " at eighty-five. There are said to be languages in 
which there is no word corresponding to our word home. With our 
poets that word is the central sun around which language revolves. 

Wordsworth first caught the new spirit on the British side of the 
sea, as did Bryant on the American. 

Bryant and Wordsworth have much in common. There is the 
same simplicity and exquisite fitness of language and nearness to 
nature ; the same tenderness and the same sense of the equilibrium 



83 

of the universe, " no great and no small to the soul that maketh all." 
The American sestette was led strangely enough by a boy of 
seventeen ; led, too, not on some new and captivating theme, but 
on a topic as old as the race and as trite as old. Carlyle wanted 
to postpone poetry to a future and more fitting age, yet youth and 
beauty have found no sweeter expression than in pagan poets, dead 
many centuries ago. But from all the long line from Homer down 
to the present hour, it was reserved for Bryant, beyond any other, 
to complete nature's circuit and make even old age and death 
grand and sweet. 

Let us recall for a moment Bryant's rare personality. There was 
an indefinable something in his whole aspect that at once conveyed 
the impression of a nature reverend, robust and grand. He was 
erect in figure, always squarely standing on both feet, a mental as 
well as a physical characteristic. His head and face, like his first 
great poem, seemed to belong to all ages of the world. What a 
capital model it would have furnished for a gigantic sculpture on 
the pediment of the Parthenon ! Some faces carry their date and 
all their story in the lines of expression. The whole book is printed 
on the cover. Bryant's deeply carved countenance is hieroglyphic 
and belonged to antediluvian, postdiluvian, or current time, accord- 
ing to your imagination. Keen eyes peering out from the shadow 
of overhanging brows, did not hold you like the glittering eye of 
the ancient mariner, but they penetrated to your very marrow. He 
was always neatly dressed, for he had none of the small " pride 
that apes humility." Antisthenes, the cynic, affected a ragged coat ; 
but Socrates said to him, " Antisthenes, I can see your vanity peer- 
ing out through the holes of your coat." Bryant carefully ob- 
served the proprieties of good society. He knew very well what 
was due to his own position, but felt no sense of incongruity in the 
company of shirt-sleeved laborers, nor would he, like Scott's Sir 
Piercie Shaftoe, blush to lead the farmer's daughter out to dinner 
or the dance. He was reticent ; even with old acquaintances he did 
not conceal altogether his distaste for those pretty conventional 
fibs and nothings that come of " making " talk. He loved to have 



34 

with him on a long stroll an original-minded and suggestive friend, 
who could enjoy the companionship of silence, and take a great 
deal for granted. Webster had a talent for sleep. Bryant had a 
talent for solitude and silence. He must have often felt like say- 
ing as did little Paul Dombey at the seaside, to the sympathetic, 
chattering children around him, " Go away, if you please ; thank 
you, thank you, but I don't want you." 

The lover is never lonely with his mistress. Bryant being pro- 
foundly in love with nature, was no more lonely with wind and 
cloud in these wide pastures and deep woods, than amid the stacks 
of stone and brick, and the everlasting din of wheels and hustling 
crowds of Fulton street and Broadway. Even there his inner ear 
still heard the rustle of the birches and the soft purr of " Roaring 
Brook " falling into its cool, rocky basins. 

Bryant's power of acquiring knowledge was so prodigious and 
his industry so unremitting that in effect he lived two or three cen- 
turies. His wonderful memory was not like that of Robert Hon- 
din, the prestidigitateur, a dragnet raking in everything good, bad 
and indifferent. Only that which had merit of some kind was re- 
tained. He would wear no title. What title could add anything 
to that of Mr. Bryant or Mr. Gladstone, each the chief citizen of 
his own country ? The popular notion that he was of cold, im- 
passive temperament was not without excuse, though the truth is 
that he had, on the contrary, rather a torrid temper. His whole 
life having been a struggle to overcome imperfections of every 
kind, he came at last to hold an air-brake control of himself, and 
became one of the gentlest of men. 

One, however, who should at any time presume to impugn his 
personal integrity, or to kill the wild birds on his premises, would 
become aware of heat under the cool exterior. 

Bryant secured nothing of what is called '* passional training" — 
Lord save ihe mark ! — by the sacrifice of women's hearts, as did 
Goethe and Byron and Burns. The windows of his soul were open 
to veracity, courage and virtue, and these angels brought him the 
gift of tongues and of song. Every public meeting at Athens at 



35 

a certain period of its history, was opened with a curse on any one 
who should not speak what he really thought. Bryant was one of 
the few for whom such a curse would have had no terrors. He was 
first of all truthful, the very antipode of the demagogue. Like the 
planets in their courses, Bryant was never idle, never behind time, 
and never in a hurry. Though ravished by the order and beauty 
of the universe, the Snell in his nature would never allow him to 
burst into a volcanic frenzy like poor Keats. Though he made 
many voyages to Europe and elsewhere, the record of which makes 
charming chapters in his biography, he remained the most Ameri- 
can of our poets. He belongs to the soil and skies of his native 
land as distinctly as the bison and the bald eagle. 

He was an optimist with the serene assurance of great and ear- 
nest souls, that the universe is sound and God is well. His faith 
was like the eternal sunset in Faust, where every height is on fire, 
and every vale is in repose. Browning vociferates the same senti- 
ment and with such passionate vehemence as almost to make us 
doubt the writer's confidence in his own shoutine:. He cries, 

" Iterate, reiterate, snatch it from the hells. 
Circulate and meditate that God is well, 
Pay the ringers to ring it ; put it in the mouths of the bells, 
Get the singers to sing it, that God is well." 

In calmer and loftier strains, Bryant leads us on to serener 
heights where the same glorious assurance opens upon us, 

" With warmth and certainty and boundless light." 
Bryant's poetry is like the playing oE actors, like Booth and Joe 
Jefferson, artists who never descend to sentimentality or sensa- 
tionalism in order to please those who are to see the play but once. 
A commoner poet might at first produce a stronger effect. 

But gradually absolute fidelity to nature " attunes our taste to a 
faultless execution." So in the poetry of Bryant there may at first 
appear a lack of fire, but, like everything truly beautiful, it is a con- 
tinual revelation and we come at last to listen to him as to nature 
herself, and to resent the slightest alteration in the text even by 
the author himself. 



36 

Thanatopsis must be counted the most remarkable of short 
poems. The extreme youth of the author, and the fact that the 
existence of the poem was a secret shared with no human being,. 
for five years at least give it a mystery and marvel which add to its 
grandeur. It is the vastest figure of Death ever drawn. As it was- 
written here when the family was intact, it has special interest on 
this occasion. To Bryant the subject, though old as Arcturus and 
Orion, is new and untried. He tells us what we knew full well be- 
fore, but tells it with such power and fitness, that he seems to be 
the original discoverer, and to have rescued the fact from chaos. 

We can well imagine Milton saying to Bryant, as he said to 
another, " After so glorious a performance you ought to do nothing 
that is mean and little, not so much as to think of anything but 
what is great and sublime." If any such injunction was heard b}' 
our author, grandly did he heed it. 

When as a boy of eight or ten years of age, I sat on the " little 
seats " in the old red schoolhouse over yonder hill, the bigger boys- 
and girls sometimes had Thanatopsis for a reading lesson, even 
then a vague wonder arose in my mind why it was that to hear 
the minister talk of death made my flesh creep and my heart sink, 
while to hear Thanatopsis, though the theme was the very same,, 
was soothing and exalting. Doubtless this was in part due to the 
large way in which the subject is reviewed in the poem, the mag- 
nificent vastness and universality of death, taking away the feeling 
of loneliness and gloom ; it was even a little flattering — " Thou 
shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world, with kings," and 
so on. And perhaps it was also the deep sea roll of its rhythm- 
and the exquisite fitness of language which even a child could feel, 
and whose beauty not even the shambling clumsiness of rustic 
readers could altogether mar or hide. There is nothing in it pitiful 
or distressing as in Addison's " Vision of Mirza" with its terrible 
bridge in the valley of Bagdad, but all was grand, orderly and serene. 

Sitting in the northeast section of the wide gallery in the " Old 
Meet'n House '^ on Meet'n House Hill, might have been seen, in 
the summer of 1811, a handsome youth, who seemed to be listen- 



37 

ing decorously to the long homilies poured forth by good Parson 
Briggs, from the high pulpit, in which the preacher seemed to be 
going to sea in a bowl. (Parson Briggs, by the way, was ordained in 
this very grove one hundred and sixteen years ago.) But really the 
thoughts of the youth in the wide gallery were wandering in God's 
first temples, and he was listening to 

" Airs from viewless Eden blown," 

for "Thanatopsis " was then taking form in his mind. How little 
the grave and stately minister dreamed that when eighty years 
■should have rolled away the soliloquy of the handsome youth would 
be known and admired in all civilized lands and languages, while 
his own faithful and sonorous messages of fifty-two consecutive 
years would have passed with the tall pulpit and sounding board from 
which they were promulgated to a deep and common forgetfulness ! 
" Thanatopsis " is the soliloquy of youth, yet forgotten nations, 
extinguished constellations and the living present seem to be rever- 
■ently listening and adding their solemn amen. It was not written 
for fame nor to propagate a theory. Beecher in a discourse de- 
livered soon after the poet's death, pronounced "Thanatopsis" a 
pagan poem. Well, it is the poem of the human race and that in- 
cludes the pagan. It is pagan, as the air and the Pleiades and the 
Zodiac are pagan. We all instantly agree that what is said is the 
exact truth, but if there were a theory, the more exact the statement 
of it the more certain we should be of disagreement. It was no 
more affected by authorities or financial considerations than the 
" flight of years " itself. It is Nature's own voice, spoken through 
the clear brain of an ingenuous youth. The poem is unique in 
what it says and in what it does not say. Though the author lived 
in the midst of fierce arid continual theological pronouncement, 
there is not in the poem the slightest allusion to any system of 
faith, to a deity or even to a future state of existence. There is 
no side issue, no tub to any whale of public opinion, but death is 
quietly and surely restored to its proper place in the universal order. 
It is the one great poem to which a date is an impertinence. It fits 



38 

as perfectly for ten thousand years ago or ten thousand years hence 
as for to-day. 

Our chairman (Mr. Parke Godwin) has happily said somewhere 
that " Poetry is the steeping of the palpable and familiar in the 
glorious dyes of the ideal." Coleridge defines it as " The best 
words in the best order." 

Bryant fully answers both requirements. 

Bryant's exquisite choice of words, both in sound and signification, 
is a continual delight. We hear the "■ hissing bolt of scorn " and 

" The sound of dropping nuts is heard, 
Though all the trees are still," 

not falling nuts, but dropping. 

In "Waiting by the Gate," how ponderous the tread in one line 
and how light in the succeeding : — 

" Steps of earth's great and mighty between those pillars gray, 
And prints of little feet mark the dust along the way." 

When he speaks of the " still lapse of ages " the words hold 
you ; you can hardly misread them if you would. And mark how 
smoothly " the long train of ages glides away " in an infinite 
perspective ! 

It is this clearness and musical fitness that make Bryant's lines 
so easy to read. Even his hymns protect themselves, though of all 
bad reading, hymn reading is usually the worst. Many a hymn 
writer might well make the dying request of the old militia captain, 
" Don't let the awkward squad fire over my grave," 

Bryant gives us pictures rather than description. He does not 

weary with details like the old poets, nor with catalogues like Walt 

Whitman. He is almost microscopic in accuracy, but there is no 

dissection. He sees the veins and cilia and serratures of the leaf, 

but he does not anatomize it. His style is so simple and clear as 

to seem inevitable. 

" Heaped in the hollows of the grove 
The autumn leaves lie dead ; 
They rustle to the eddying gust 
And to the rabbit's tread." 



39 

How obvious ! How easy ! How else could it have been writ- 
ten ? It is the artlessness of perfect art. His words are the com- 
mon ones of the common people, yet with what grace and dignity 
they move in the presence of Johnsonian royalty. There is never 
a crutch or a clubfoot in the whole procession. 

Bryant's personification of wind and stream and mountain we 
accept instantly and as a matter of course. Probably there is 
some contemplative boy here to-day who makes a confidant and 
playfellow of old Westfield river. I know there was one such, 
something more than sixty years ago, to whom the delightful little 
river was as distinct a personality as " Deacon Briggs," or the 
gigantic colored brother, " Old Brister." That boy would have 
blushed scarlet to have it known that he actually asked the whole 
stream how he could go laughing over his cobblestones rapids, 
when he had to traverse at night the deep gloom of Dug-Way and 
Deep-Hole where a man had been drowned. But long afterward, 
when he saw by chance in a magazine Bryant's " Night Journey of 
a River, " he felt justified and almost glorified, for the great poet, 
too, talked to the stream : — 

" O River ! darkling river ! what a voice 
Is that thou utterest while all is still — 
The ancient voice, that, centuries ago, 
Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet, 
A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream." 

Late one afternoon in December, 1815, Bryant walked over to 
yonder hamlet of Plainfield, with the design of opening a law office 
there. That was the walk that led to the writing of what many 
hold is his best poem, " To a Waterfowl." As he climbed the hill 
into the little town he turned around, as one so naturally does in 
climbing a long hill, and looked back over the darkening landscape, 
feeling quite forlorn and desolate over his business prospects. Mr. 
Godwin, in his magnificent biography of the poet, in describing the 
incident, says : " The sun had already set, leaving behind it one of 
those brilliant seas of chrysolite and opal which often flood the 
New England skies ; and while he was looking upon the rosy splen- 



40 

dor, with rapt admiration, a solitary bird made wing along the illumi- 
nated horizon. He watched the lone wanderer until it was lost in 
the distance, asking himself whence it had come and to what far 
home it was flying. When he went to the house where he was to 
stop for the night, his mind was still full of what he had seen and 
felt and he wrote those lines, as imperishable as our language, ' To 
a Waterfowl.' " You all know the closing stanza : — 

" He who from zone to zone 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 
Will lead my steps aright." 

What is the secret of power in lines like this little quatrain .-* 
When the great violinist Wieniawski played in the largest hall 
in America it was observed that the slenderest spider thread of 
tone from his violin was heard distinctly in every part of the great 
room, distance seeming to have little effect upon it. It was the 
quality, the purity of tone that gave it such a reach. It is quality, 
fidelity to truth and nature that will make Bryant's lines live while 
elaborate faiths dissolve and empires pass away. Who shall say 
how many steep declivities in life this little quatrain has helped to 
climb, or how often at the parting of the ways, or in hours of doubt 
and distress it has come, bringing comfort and courage with its 
sublime trust ? Victor Hugo was right when he said, " Every bird 
that flies carries the thread of the infinite in his claw." When 
this poem was written our hymn books were dark with hymns that 
Giant Despair himself might have written. Bryant has not a line 
of despair. Not one ! His God may not be as Socrates said his 
was, " a God of glee," but he is a God of serene and eternal joy. 
The loneliness of Plainfield was soon exchanged for the excellent 
society and wider opportunities of Great Barrington where he laid 
the foundation of a happy home by his happy marriage, and where 
he proved his ability to succeed in the profession of the law ; but 
through his own aspirations, and the suggestions of the apprecia- 
tive and learned Sedgwicks and others, he entered a more congenial 
field in the metropolis. His fame was already secure. Great men 



41 

live two lives, one in their own generation and another in the ages 
following. 

Immensely long was Bryant's life as literatus and poet, and the 
■second life will stretch away to a proportionate duration. Bryant 
lived two lives in his own day and generation and was pre-eminent 
in each— poet and editor. 

Bryant's fame rests mainly on his verses, but his chief merit is 
that he was a great and constant moral force. The angels of Con- 
duct, Toil and Thought ever stood by his door, ready to accom- 
pany him whithersoever he went. In the earlier part of his editorial 
career the moral apathy of the country was profound and almost 
hopeless. Of the great powers of society, state, church, court and 
commerce, it would be hard to say which was the most deaf to the 
voice of conscience, or the most willingly blind to the demands of 
human brotherhood. Bryant did not go into a newspaper for the 
express purpose of reviving this paralyzed conscience of the people, 
but primarily to get a livelihood. But his hand being to the plow, 
his sense of justice would not permit him to look back. In the 
midst of the free and easy dickering with conscience in national 
affairs he stood as firm as his native hills for the sacredness of 
man's duty to man. He made the Evening Post not only a literary 
authority, but the high-water mark of public and political morality. 
For two generations he labored, a man among men, for the 
strengthening of that moral sentiment and that public and private 
virtue which lie at the basis of all politics and all religion that are 
worth anything to mankind. The influences of half a century of 
such labor must be vast and far-reaching, though intangible and un- 
traceable as that of the sunlight, whose results are seen in ruddy 
fruits and grateful leafage on every hand. 

"Wise men," said a Greek philosopher, " argue questions and fools 
decide them." But in that same Athens, though the mob was as 
capricious as a Chicago mob of to-day, the greatest happiness of 
that age was attained, and its philosophy and art still illuminate all 
the new highways of civilization. So men like Bryant and Emer- 
son and Whittier, knowing wherein their power lay, were right in 



42 

going steadily on with that John the Baptist work which prepared 
the way for " the glory of the coming of the Lord." I cannot for- 
bear to recall the shout of joy with which young Buffalo platform 
Free-Soilers in 1848 saw Bryant unfurl, in the staid and able Even- 
ing Post, the banner of Free Soil, Free Speech and Free Men; to 
which he added Free Trade on his own account. In the center 
and heart of Baal worship he stood for that " Higher Law " whose 
home, as old Richard Hooker said, " is in the bosom of God, and 
whose voice is the harmony of the universe." And when, in 1865,. 
it at last became almost safe for colleges to listen to conscience, 
for statesmen to be wise, for commerce to be honest, for the church 
to be Christian, and for the courts to be just, none rejoiced with a 
profounder joy than this modest, self-possessed poet-editor, for 
none had played a nobler part in the mighty struggle. 

" Blest and thrice blest the Roman 
Who sees Rome's brightest day," 

and this our Cato saw. 

Part of the oath required of every Egyptian soul, in the judgment 
hall of Osiris, before admission to Heaven, was one that could 
have been taken by Bryant every morning of his career': " I have 
never defiled my conscience from fear or favor to my superiors." 
Few lives have been so well rounded and complete. No window- 
in this Aladdin palace was left unfinished, but a magic lamp of 
genius long shone clear from every one. His first word was the 
absolute truth of nature, and his last was for human freedom. All 
the shores of Time are piled high with the debris of faiths, and cus- 
toms, and empires ; the very next gale that goes career ing over 
mankind may add our own to the vast and melancholy accumula- 
tion ; but what storm, what revolution can bring disaster to a 
character so gloriously in line with eternal rectitude ? " It is in no 
more danger than a star in the jaws of a cloud." Since such a 
man has lived and wrought, civic virtue and honesty in politics are 
no longer an impracticable dream. With a fuller measure of success 
in life than his great heart could have dreamed, he passed away, 
breathing the grateful fragrance of universal honor and esteem. 



43 

Beautiful was this life of eighty-four years in the home, in the 
political forum, and in the wide fields of literature. 

Beautiful was this life in these lonely pastures and silent woods ; 
more beautiful when, laying his harp aside, he went down into the 
thickest of the struggle for conscience and duty and human rights. 

Beautiful upon these mountains was the coming of our beloved 
poet, chanting the primal, eldest message of Nature and of Time. 

Beautiful was his going, at last, with the eloquent eulogium of a 
fellow worker in the cause of human freedom upon his aged lips. 

Oh, serene and illustrious spirit ! Brood forever over these thy 
native hills, and over all our land, the guardian genius of litera- 
ture and liberty, of poetry and art, and all that is noble and pure 
and true. 

The Memorial address was followed by the singing of Bryant's 
hymn, commencing " O, deem not they are blest alone," arranged 
as a duet, by Julie A. Shaw and Henrietta S. Najimer, after which 
Mr. John H. Bryant recited in clear, vibrant tones " The Monody," 
a part of which poem he had written soon after his brotlier's death. 
The touching pathos of this tribute, given to the dead brother, by 
the one who still lived, will never be forgotten by those who heard it. 



A MONODY. 

My heart to-day is far away ; 

I seem to tread my native hills ; 
I see the flocks and mossy rocks ; 

I hear the gush of mountain rills. 

There with me walks and kindly talks 
The dear, dear friend of all my years, 

We laid him low not long ago, 
At Roslyn-side with sobs and tears. 

But though I know that this is so 

I will not have it so to-day ; 
The illusion still, by force of will 

Shall give my wayward fancy play. 

With joy we roam around the home 
Where in our childhood days we played ; 

AVe tread the mead, with verdure spread. 
And seek the wood-paths' grateful shade. 

We climb the steep, where fresh winds sweep, 
Where oft before our feet have trod. 

And look far forth, east, south, and north 
" Upon the glorious works of God." 

We tread again the rocky glen, 

Where foaming waters dash along ; 

And sit alone on mossy stone 

Charmed by the thrasher's twilight song. 

Anon we stray, far, far away 

The club-moss crumbling 'neath our tread. 
Seeking the spot, by most forgot. 

Where sleep the generations dead. 

And now we come into the home, 
The dear old home our childhood knew, 

And round the board with plenty stored 
We gather as we used to do. 

With reverence now, I see him bow 
That head with many honors crowned ; 

All white his locks are as the flocks 
That feed upon the hills around. 




John' Howard Bryant. 



45 

Again we meet in converse sweet 
Around the blazing cottage hearth, 

And while away the closing day 
With quiet talk and tales of mirth. 

The spell is broke. Oh, cruel stroke ! 

The illusive vision will not stay, 
My fond, sweet dream was fancy's gleam- 

Which stubborn fact has chased away. 

I am alone ; my friend is gone, 

He'll seek no more that lovely scene ; 

His feet no more shall wander o'er 
These wooded hills and pastures green. 

No more he'll look upon the brook 

Whose hanks his infant feet had pressed. 

The little rill, whose waters still 
Come dancing from the rosy west. 

Nor will he climb at autumn time 
Those hills the glorious sight to view. 

When in their best the woods are dressed— 
The same his raptured boyhood knew. 

The hermit thrush at twilight hush 
He'll hear no more with deep delight ; 

No blossoms gay beside the way 
Attract his quick and eager sight. 

The lulling sound from pines around 
No more shall soothe his noon-day rest, 

Nor trailing cloud with misty shroud 
For him the morning hills invest. 

That voice so sweet that late did greet 
My ear each passing summer-tide 

Is silent now ; that reverend brow 
Rests in the grave at Roslyn-side. 

His was a life of toil and strife 

Against the wrong and for the good ; 

Through weary years of hopes and fears 
For freedom, truth and right he stood. 

At length a gleam of broad esteem 
On his declining years was cast. 

And a bright crown of high renown 
Enwreathed his hoary head at last. 



46 

His love of song so deep and strong 

In boyhood, faded not in age ; 
At life's last hour, with noontide power, 

His genius lit the printed page. 

His sun has set ; its twilight yet 

Flushes the chambers of the sky; 
A softer flame of spreading fame, 

A glory that shall never die. 

The closing exercise of the morning was the singing by E. Lester 
Brown, son of the orator of the day, of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's 
grand lyric, " The Battle Hymn of the Republic," the refrain of 
-' Glory Hallelujah" being taken by the chorus. When the gifted 
authoress rose at the spontaneous greeting from the audience, the 
scene was thrilling and inspiring, as with grace she bowed her 
whitened head to the cheers of this appreciative country-side 
gathering. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 

These commenced with a march, " Old Homestead," by the 
orchestra, and the singing of " A Forest Retreat " by the local 
chorus, after which the following letters were read by the sec- 
retary : — 

Letter from O. W. Holmes. 

Beverly Farms, Mass., August 13, 1894, 
It would have given me great pleasure to attend the celebration 
of Bryant's hundredth birthday at Cummington, but the effects of a 
recent illness render it imprudent for me to undertake the journey. 
Thirty years ago I had the privilege of being present at a great 
meeting held in New York, to greet Mr. Bryant on his seventieth 
birthday. He was the oldest of that group of poets whose names 
were already familiar to all American readers. If such an office 
had existed he would have been the Dean of the Guild of our 
native poets. Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier and Lowell were all 
then living and in full possession of their varied powers. As I re- 
call him on that occasion he seemed as one belonging to the past. 
His venerable aspect was growing more and more like the ideal of 
the bard as Gray has pictured him. I need not quote the lines 
which recur to all who remember Bryant in his later years. Yet 
though his life was handed over to us from a bygone century, 
though he looked to the younger crowd around him as if he had 
strayed from another world into that of to-day, no man was more 
keenly alive to the thoughts and doings of his time than William 
Cullen Bryant. I could have wished to contribute on this occasion 
to the memory of the poet in the form of verse, but I must be per- 
mitted to borrow the words of one of tne *guests at the banquet 
in New York which express what I would say better than any I 
should be likely to extort from the languors of convalescence. 

*Himself. 



48 

How shall we praise the verse whose music flows 
With solemn cadence and majestic close, 
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose ? 

How shall we thank him that in evil days 
He faltered never, nor for blame nor praise. 
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays ? 

But as his boyhood was of manliest hue 
So to his youth his manly years were true, 
All dyed in royal purple, through and through. 

At the meeting of his seventieth birthday Bryant was in a vigor- 
ous condition of mind and body. He might, perhaps, have lived 
into his ninth or tenth decade had he not been in dangerously good 
health. But trusting to his strong constitution he would not spare 
himself. He forgot the limitations of threescore and twenty, and 
Nature reminded him of them in a fatal message. 

As a patriot his name belongs with those of the " Sons of 
Liberty " of the century in which he was born. As a man of letters 
he deserves an honorable place among those of the scholars of his 
time. As a poet he has shaped his own monument. 

Marbles forget their message lo mankind. 
In his own verse the poet lives enshrined. 

A breath of noble verse outlives all that can be carved in stone 

or cast in bronze. In his poems inspired by Nature, Bryant has 

identified himself with perennial life. In singing of Death he has 

won the prize of Immortality. 

O. W. Holmes. 

Letter from ex-Senator Dawes. 

PiTTSFIELD, August lO, 1894. 

I sincerely regret that I have not been able to so arrange pre- 
vious engagements as to make it possible for me to participate in 
the commemorative exercises of the sixteenth in my native town. 
I am very glad that this generation of its inhabitants cherish the 
memory and honor the name of its most illustrious son. The town 
does itself great honor in bearing testimony to the personal Avorth 
and the genius of the most distinguished of its children. It thus. 



49 

testifies to the world its own appreciation of those rare gifts with 
which Mr. Bryant was endowed and casts out from its borders the 
pretense that a prophet is without honor in his own country. 

It is the birthright of us all to love and honor him who has done 
so much to keep the name of our good old town a living memory 
as long as the rivulet shall run to the river and the hills among 
which he was born shall stand about his birthplace. 

May the occasion be most enjoyable to you and all those who 
with you pay fitting tribute to the rare and lovable character we 
have all held in such high regard. 

Henry L. Dawes. 

There was one person seated upon the platform by the side of 
the poet's daughter, who had been the friend of Bryant for many 
years, and also his associate upon the Evening Post, with which his 
name is inseparably connected, who had the further claim to dis- 
tinction of having represented our country at the court of France 
under Abraham Lincoln — the Hon. John Bigelow, He had come 
from the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York, then 
in session at Alban}', and this circumstance led to the humorous 
suggestions of many of the speakers. 



ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN BIGELOW. 

When I accepted the invitation to assist at this pious festival it 
was with the understanding, as I thought, that I was to be ministered 
unto, not to minister ; to hear rather than be heard ; nor was it 
without some scruples that I left Albany yesterday, as I was com- 
pelled to do in order to get here this morning, for the final vote in 
the Constitutional Convention of my state, on the amendment in- 
tended to extend the elective franchise to the gentler sex, was to 
be taken last evening, and it grieved me to lose the only oppor- 
tunity I have ever had or expect to have of casting my vote for 
such extension. However, I overcame my scruples by pairing with 
an adversary of suffrage extension, that I might not seem to neg- 
lect any and especially such an appropriate occasion for doing 
homage to the memory of him in whose honor we are gathered 
together here to-day. 

The mind-reading speakers who have already addressed you 
have anticipated much of what I would have wished to say, for- 
tunately for you as they have said it better than I should have 
done, and I shall therefore limit the few remarks with which I shall 
detain y9u to matters more or less exclusively within the range of 
my personal experience. 

It was my good fortune to be associated professionally with Mr. 
Bryant for several years, and to come into closer relations with his 
opulent intellect and symmetrical character than could have been 
enjoyed by many of those whom I have the privilege of address- 
ing. I have always regarded his invitation to join him in the 
management of the Evening Post, and to share with him its re- 
sponsibilities, as the greatest honor I have ever received. It gave 
me a value in my own eyes which of itself constituted a perpetual 
impulse to justify it. 

The purity of his life, the lofty standard which he followed, his 
inexorable truthfulness, directness and uprightness which have 



51 

been necessarily the most prominent theme of all the discourses 
you have heard to-day ; his varied literary accomplishments un- 
equaled in this country at least, by any who have ornamented the 
profession, to which he devoted the most of his adult life, and 
finally his verse, the full value of which is far yet from being duly 
appreciated, exerted upon me a peculiar influence, more extensive 
and enduring than I have been conscious of experiencing from 
my associations with any other man in my life. 

Everything he did, said or wrote was in some way an example, 
an impulse, or a criticism. It always bore a certain stamp of 
superiority which arrested attention and commanded respect. 
What is still a surprise to me and to many may seem incredible, I 
felt that influence for long years after we were separated to such a 
degree that I rarely found myself perplexed in regard to the line of 
duty or propriety or good taste, without asking myself, " What would 
Bryant have done under those circumstances ?" and I may say that, 
unlike the ancient oracles, he never gave me an equivocal or doubt- 
ful answer. If I never profited as much as I ought and should 
have done by such an example, it is, nevertheless, an illustration of 
the power and importance of a good example, which has seemed 
worthy of being referred to here, for it is calculated to give us all a 
juster sense of our responsibilities for the example we give one to 
another, responsibilities which we all undervalue. 

There was another web woven into the woof of Mr. Bryant's life 
to which no allusion has yet been made here to-day, which must be 
carefully reckoned with in any estimate of his life and character. 
Mrs. Bryant, embalmed in his early verse as " Fairest of the Rural 
Maids," was his Egeria. She was his confidant, counselor and 
partner, in all his hopes and anxieties, in prosperity and adversity. 
He never considered his verses fit to meet the public eye until they 
had received her approval, for he early discovered that he had no 
other friend whose judgment of his verse was so sure to be ratified 
by the public. What Marcenas was to Horace, she less question- 
ably was to Mr. Bryant, the half of his life. Nothing he ever 
wrote is more touching than the lines written during her illness at 



52 

Naples in i860, when he was despairing of her recovery, and 
brooding over the dread prospect of their earthly separation. 
These verses in his published writings are accompanied by no ex- 
planation of the pathetic circumstances under which they were 
written and which may not have been known to many of you. I 
think I cannot more appropriately conclude these unpremeditated 
remarks than by reading those lines with which, while commemorat- 
ing Bryant, we may also in his majestic verse commemorate the 
beloved wife of the poet and the mother of his children. 
Mr. Bigelow then read from Bryant's Poems 

The Cloud on the Way. 

See, before us, in our journey, broods a mist upon tiie ground ; 
Thither leads the path we walk in, blending with that gloomy bound ; 
Never eye hath pierced its shadows to the mystery they screen ; 
Those who once have passed within it never more on earth are seen. 
Now it seems to stoop beside us, now at seeming distance lowers. 
Leaving banks that tempt us onward bright with summer-green and flowers, 
Yet it blots the way forever ; there our journey ends at last ; 
Into that dark cloud we enter, and are gathered to the past. 
Thou who, in this flinty pathway, leading through a stranger-land, 
Passest down the rocky valley, walking with me hand in hand, 
Which of us shall be the soonest folded to that dim unknown? 
Which shall leave the other walking in this flinty path alone ? 
Even now I see thee shudder, and thy cheek is white with fear, 
And thou clingest to my side as comes that darkness sweeping near. 
" Here " thou say'st " the path is rugged, sown with thorns that wound the feet ; 
But the sheltered glens are lovely, and the rivulet's song is sweet; 
Roses breathe from tangled thickets ; lilies bend from ledges brown ; 
Pleasantly between the pelting showers the sunshine gushes down ; 
Dear are those who walk beside us, they whose looks and voices make 
All this rugged region cheerful, till I love it for their sake. 
Far be yet the hour that takes me where that chilly shadow lies, 
From the things I know and love, and from the sight of loving eyes." 
So thou murmurest, fearful one ; but see, we tread a rougher way ; 
Fainter glow the gleams of sunshine that upon the dark rocks play; 
Rude winds strew the faded flowers upon the crags o'er which we pass ; 
Banks of verdure, when we reach them, hiss with tufts of withered grass, 
One by one we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear. 
One by one the kindly faces in that shadow disappear. 
Yet upon the mist before us fix thine eyes with closer view ; 



53 

See, beneath its sullen skirts the rosy morning glimmers through ; 

One whose feet the thorns have wounded passed that barrier and came back 

With a glory on His footsteps lighting yet the dreary track. 

Boldly enter where He entered ; all that seems but darkness here, 

When thou once hast passed beyond it, haply shall be crystal-clear ; 

Viewed from that serener realm, the walks of human life may lie, 

Like the page of some familiar volume, open to thine eye ; 

Haply, from the o'erhanging shadow, thou may'st stretch an unseen hand. 

To support the wavering steps that print with blood the rugged land. 

Haply, leaning o'er the pilgrim, all unweeting thou art near. 

Thou may'st whisper words of warning or of comfort in his ear, 

Till, beyond the border where that brooding mystery bars the sight. 

Those whom thou hast fondly cherished stand with thee in peace and light. 

Mr. Godwin introduced Mrs. Howe as " one of the leading 
women in the great movement favoring woman suffrage," a position 
which she considers of equal honor with her rank as authoress of 
the " Battle Hymn." 



POEM BY MRS. HOWE. 



The age its latest decade shows, 
The wondrous autumn near its close, 
Revealing in its fateful span, 
Unwonted ways of good to man. 

Imprisoned vapor speeds its course. 
Flies, quick with life th' electric force, 
Nature's daemonic mysteries 
Are angels now that win and please. 

But dearer far to human ken. 

The record of illustrious men. 

The gifts conveyed in measures wrought 

Of noble purpose and high thought. 

Above the wild industrial din, 
The race an hundred goals to win. 
The gathered wealth, the rifled mine, 
Still sounds the poet's song divine. 

The skill that marshals myriad hands, 
For manhood's task in many lands. 
Attunes her anvil by the lyre, 
And forges with Promethean fire. 

Oh master of imperial lays. 
Crowned in the fullness of thy days. 
One heart that owns thy gracious spell 
Thy reverend mien remembers well. 

■*For mme it was, ere fell the snow 
Upon this head of long ago. 
My modest wreath to intertwine 
With richer offerings at thy shrine. 



•At the festival given by the Century Club in commemoration of the seventieth birth- 
day of Bryant. 



55 

A guest upon that day of days, 
How leapt my heart to hymn thy praise ! 
Yea, from that hour my spirit wore 
A high content unknown before. 

The past engulfs these echoes fond ; 
Thou and thy mates have passed beyond. 
And that fair festival appears 
Dim through the vista of long years. 

But love still keeps his watch below, 
When fades from sight the sunset glow, 
And at the challenge of thy name 
Stirs in each heart the loyal flame. 

Still battling on the field of life. 
We break from the unequal strife, 
From task or pastime hasten all 
As at a vanished leader's call. 

Within the shadow of thy tent 
We read again thy testament, 
Review the treasure which thy art 
Bequeathed t' enrich thy country's heart. 

No gift whose precious bloom can fade. 

No holocaust on false shrine laid, 

A legacy of good untold, 

August as oracles of old. 

The winged words that cannot die. 

The world-transcending prophecy. 

Plainfield, not only the sister of Cummington,but its daughter as 
well, was honored in the person of the next speaker, Charles 
Dudley Warner, the humorous essayist and careful portrayer of 
modern social life. 



ADDRESS OF CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 

This seems to be a very grand and promiscuous picnic. When 
I came to the edge of it, I pushed through to find the storm center, 
and when I saw the leonine head of Mr. Godwin, I knew the center 
of the intellectual radiance. But in this center it is not easy to 
address the encircling audience. The only thing that could ade- 
quately address this surrounding crowd is a i evolving flash-light. 

This is a significant and important meeting. It is a great thing 
for a town like this to keep in mind the memory of its great men, 
and to get together on one pretext or another as often as possible 
for the encouragement of its just town pride and the interchange of 
social feeling. I like to see the town spirit cultivated, and there is 
nothing else so stimulating for it as the inspiring memory of its 
great men. To the towns about here, I recommend that they go 
back and get as soon as possible a Biyant to celebrate. As I was 
born in the next town, Plainfield, and Dr. Bryant, the poet's father 
was my father's physician ('though I am happy to say not his last), 
and our apple orchard is in sight of the Bryant homestead, I feel 
that I have some right to pay a tribute to the man whose birth has 
conferred distinction on all this region. If Cummington had never 
done anything else than produce William Cullen Bryant, she would 
be immortal. We see here what is most valuable in the life of any 
town, state or nation. History does not much regard fertile soil, 
or material wealth, but the admirable men and women that the 
state produces. They are the glory of a state. But it is not 
merely a matter of reputation. The influence of such a man as 
Bryant, of such a high character, and such a true poet, is great 
with his contemporaries, and with their descendants. Who can 
say what moral influence, what a refining and elevating force the 
poetry of Bryant has been in this region alone ? 

I knew " Thanatopsis " by heart when I was a very small boy, and 



57 

as I went about repeating it, it used to interpret for me Bryant's 
feeling for nature, the nature that I saw, and the noble pathos of 
life. It seemed to be a secret which I shared with the poet. I 
remember well how shamefaced I was once when a cousin of mine 
exposed me. Unbeknown to me he had stood near me one even- 
ing, when I was milking one of the cows, and heard me repeat 
" Thanatopsis." It must be sufficiently ludicrous, the spectacle of a 
barefooted scrap of a boy — a boy, but not more than nine years 
younger than the other boy when he wrote the poem — seated on a 
milking stool and declaiming those immortal lines to the cow. I 
do not know how he managed to accommodate the stately 
rhythm of that blank verse to the intermittent sounding streams in 
the pail. Very likely he did not, and that was one of the reasons 
why he was accused of drying up the cows he milked. I wondered 
then, and I wonder now, where " Thanatopsis '' came from. How 
did it come into the mind of a boy in these remote hills, away 
from the suggestions of the great world .-' Did the hills teach him, 
and the forests and the brooks and the clouds ? Was it industry 
and application that made this poem .'' I think, my friends, that 
we shall have to fall back on that mysterious something, the pos- 
sibly supernatural suggestion that we call genius. Ah, it was 
genius that has brought this great multitude here to-day. You 
might have had all the dictionary writers and learned men, and 
some of the plodding fellows who speak to you, and you would 
never have had such a gathering as this. 

Now I am going to suggest that we mark this day, by giving this 
hill upon which we meet, which runs yonder to a summit, that was 
a favorite place of contemplation with our poet, a name that shall 
express something of the permanent reputation he has left. Mr. 
Bigelow has made himself very popular with this audience by say- 
ing that if he had remained at his post in the Constitutional Con- 
vention of New York, to-night he might have voted for woman 
suffrage. That is, if he had been there he would have voted to 
give you suffrage at some time in the future. 

I am not going to show my hand by saying whether he is 



58 

deservedly popular with you for this, but I am going to give you 
a chance to vote right now, without being registered. To vote on 
this resolution. Resolved, That it is the sense of the town of Cum- 
mington, and of this county, that the hill on which we stand shall 
hereafter be known to the world and the map-makers as "Mount 
Bryant/' The vote seems to be unanimous. Those opposed are 
probably not in favor of woman suffrage and I won't take their vote. 

One of the most interesting features of the day was the presence 
of John W. Hutchinson, sole survivor of the once famous Hutch- 
inson band of singers. With his long white locks brushed straight 
back from his brow, his long beard, and keen, piercing eyes, and 
attire of a bygone fashion, his was a marked presence. With kin- 
dling fervor, he gave a few reminiscences of the days when a little 
band of Abolitionists made the old Baptist church in Cummington 
the headquarters of a movement, which, though feeble then, soon 
became of significant importance. He recalled the presence at 
this country outpost, of those honored leaders in the cause — Wen- 
dell Philips, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone, Stephen Foster, 
Parker Pillsbury and others, and mentioned the fact that Cum- 
mington was one of the stations on that Underground Railroad, 
over which sped many a despairing fugitive to liberty and light. 
The Baptist church, historic shrine and rendezvous of the faithful 
ones of anti-slavery days, was burned two weeks before this hun- 
dredth anniversary, to the keen regret and sorrow of the people of 
Cummington. 

The following music was sung by John W. Hutchinson and E. 
Lester Brown : — 



THE OLD FRIENDS ARE THE TRUEST. 

Oh, the old friends are the truest, 

After all, after all ; 
Though the face be not the newest 

After all, after all ; 
When the fever heat is highest 
Or the chilling tide is nighest, 
Over all there comes a reaching 
Of a friendship, whose sweet teaching 
Brings us joy and peace and rest, 
For the weary soul the best 
After all, after all. 

What are all the stings of malice 

After all, after all? 
There are joys deep in life's chalice 

After all, after all. 
Should the shadows then pursue us 
And the sunbeams ne'er come o'er us ? 
As our feet pass by the daisies 
Shall our souls ne'er count His praises ? 
Oh, there is some joy, some rest 
For the weary soul the best 
After all, after all. 
I 

Far better than the old or newest, 

After all, after all. 
Is that loving friend the truest 

After all, after all. 

Over calms and storms He sees us - 

And from danger, too, He frees us, 

And amid our faithless serving 

Keeps a watchfulness unswerving. 

Heaven shows us perfect rest; 

There our weary souls are blest 

After all, after all. 

Mr. Godwin prefaced the reading of the next poem by remark- 
ing upon the high privilege granted to the audience to listen 
to the words of the sage, whose utterances at his advanced age 
would necessarily be but few more. 



AT EIGHTY-SEVEN. 

JOHN H. DRYANT. 

Alone, alone, why wait I here. 

When all most loved have passed away ; 
Parents, and wife and children dear, 

Brothers and sisters, where are they ? 

Gone to the boundless silent past — 

And will that past return again, 
Restore its conquests wide and vast, 

Or is this yearning hope in vain ? 

I know not, and I cannot know, 

I only know a mighty wave, 
Resistless in its onward flow, 

Sweeps all things living to the grave. 

No voice from that reluctant sphere, 

Or whisper of the stilly night 
E'er falls upon my waiting ear, 

Nor faintest shadow meets my sight. 

Still, hope eternal looks away 
Beyond the darkness of the tomb, 

Where friends departed meet or stray 
Through bowers of light and joy and bloom. 

Though thus bereft, life still is sweet ; 

All nature doth her promise fill ; 
The wild flowers blossom at my feet ; 

These glorious heavens are round me still. 

The changing seasons come and go. 

Full harvests ripen on the plain. 
The autumn woods resume their glow. 

And winter snows return again. 

Alone, I said ; oh, not alone. 
For loving friends still wait around, 

Sweet voices yet of silvery tone 
Greet my dull ear with grateful sound. 



61 

Goodness and mercy day by day, 

From birth unto the present hour 
Have followed me, or led the way— 

The guidance of Almighty Power. 

And now, amid the failing light, 

With faltering steps I journey on. 
Waiting the coming of the night. 

When earthly light and life are gone. 

And shall there rise a brighter day 

Beyond this scene ot calm and strife. 
Where iove and peace shall rule for aye, 

And goodness be the rule of life ? 

I lean on the Almighty arm 

The Good, the Merciful and Just, 
His love and care all fears disarm; 

On His unchanging law I rest. 

On introducing Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, Mr. Godwin made 
graceful allusion to the fact that both George William Curtis and 
James Russell Lowell, the most eminent of America's literary men 
in certain lines, had chosen Prof. Norton as the most fitting liter- 
ary executor of their works. After a few introductory remarks 
Mr. Norton said : — 

A poet can render to his people no greater service than to make 
their land dearer to them. This is what Scott did for Scotland, 
Burns for Ayrshire, Wordsworth for Cumberland, Westmoreland 
and Lancaster, and this is what Bryant has done for Western 
Massachusetts. The nature which he knew and loved and by 
which he was inspired was that of the rivers, the hills, and the 
forests of Berkshire and Hampshire counties ; the character mani- 
fest in his poetry and its dominating sentiment are the character 
and sentiment which he shared with the people of this region, and 
which found expression in their lives. They were a simple, grave, 
sedate race, deeply impressed with the seriousness of life, on which 



62 

they had but a narrow outlook, full of piety, nurtured on dogma, 
and possessed of strong moral convictions. There were little 
variety of experience and little play of feeling in their lives, no 
intensity of heroic passion, no splendid lifts of the imagination; 
no light of romance in their monotonous days. There was little 
grace in them, either of body or mind, but their bodies were vigor- 
ous, and their minds intelligent. It was a well-to-do, but not a 
light-hearted community ; a community of domestic virtues, of gen- 
eral kindliness, of reserved sympathies, but capable of sacrifices 
and of occasional shy displays of tenderness ; its heart was essen- 
tially sound. Of this people, dwelling in this wholesome, beautiful 
and rugged covmtry, Bryant is the poet. He uttered for them what 
they had within themselves but were incapable of expressing, and 
he invested this region with the charm of poetic associations which 
will make its pleasant landscape dearer forever to those whose 
opening eyes shall first rest upon it. Happy the poet who has this 
power ! Happy the poet who becomes thus part of the patriotic 
pride of his own people ! Happy he who has indissolubly con- 
nected the thought ot himself with a scene, or with some natural 
object, with a bird or a flower. The harebell nods with the rhythm 
of the verse of Scott, the daffodil dances to the tune of Words- 
worth's rhyme, the lark sings Shakespeare's " Hark ! Hark ! " at 
heaven's gate, the nightingale never ceases to lament her poet 
untimely dead in Keats, each petal of the rose is inscribed with a 
poet's name, the mountain daisy bears the message of Burns, the 
gold of the dandelion is the brighter for Lowell's verse, but the 
fringed gentian blooms for Bryant, and so long as a wild duck 
shall cross in its flight the crimson sky of evening, so long will 
Bryant's memory float heavenward with it. 

The poet-preacher who interprets for us with keen and loving 
vision, the meaning of the forces of the universe, gave the following 
address : — 



ADDRESS BY REV. JOHN WHITE CHADWICK. 

I am reminded, Mr. President, of the man who, when an awful 
silence fell upon a prayer meeting in Western Pennsylvania, got 
up and said that as none of the brethren seemed to have anything 
to say, he would make a few remarks upon the tariff. The breth- 
ren here have all had enough to say, and none of them too much, 
but if they had made a few remarks upon the tariff I should have 
been better pleased. For we must all agree that to speak of 
Bryant adequately, and not say a good deal about the tariff, is an 
impossible thing. Whatever else he was in the variety of his 
powers and gifts, he was eminently a tariff reformer, and if any 
one had called him a free-trader he would have been thankful for 
the praise. There were giants in those days, Horace Greeley 
was one, and William CuUen Bryant was another, and when they 
met in battle it was like two thunderclouds that burst in 
heaven, so terrible was the noise of conflict, and so refreshing the 
outpouring of their mutual recriminations. In this company there 
are many men of many minds about the tariff, but we are all of 
one mind I trust about this, that it is good for a man to have 
principles, one way or the other, and to stand by them through 
thick and thin, and this Bryant had and did, and hence in good 
part the honor that we give him on this happy day, and if he could 
return to us for a little while, rather than have him write another 
poem, I would have him write another editorial for the Evening 
Post, characterizing in fit terms those Gorman-dizers of the Senate, 
who have swallowed their principles and sold their party for a mess 
of sugar. That he would be equal to the occasion I have not the 
slightest doubt. 

I have read of a minister in this section, or some other, who 
received a call to another parish, involving an increase of salary. 
He said he would pray for light, and after a few days one of the 



64 

neighbors overhauled his son and asked him "if the old man had 
made up his mind," and the boy made answer, " He is still praying 
for light, but he has packed hii trunks.'^ Yesterday I went to the 
Ashfield dinner, praying for light. To-day when I set out for 
Cummington, I packed my trunk and here it is (producing a man- 
viscript), for if I am to speak of Bryant as a poet, I would speak 
no hasty, unconsidered word. But what can I say of him that has 
not been said already ? He was so simple here that we must all 
say the same things about him, or some of us say what is not true. 
It is a poor business trying to rank our poets first, second, third 
and so on. When a few years ago our English friends were trying 
to do this for us, and were putting Poe in the first place, my dear 
friend. Dr. Hedge, a judge in such high things, wrote to me : 
" ' Thanatopsis,' our greatest poem, Emerson our greatest poet, Poe 
nowhere." But we need them all, as in the perfect orchestra we 
need the various instruments of wood, and brass, and silver, Poe's 
tinkling triangle among the rest. Bryant was no more an Ameri- 
can Wordsworth than Cooper was an American Scott. He was an 
American Bryant, Avith as little of foreign admixture as Whittier or 
Emerson. If we endeavor to make out his quality we shall find 
that in his poetry as in his politics, the first thing was an absolute 
sincerity. What he said of birds and flowers, of rocks and 
streams, was not something that he had read in books, but some- 
thing that he had seen with his own eyes, and felt with his own 
beating heart. Moreover, it was given him to tell what he had 
seen and felt, shaping his words upon the object or experience as 
the cloud shapes itself upon the mountain's top. Here was his 
second note — a curious felicity, the magic phrase, that which we 
go to Milton for in " Paradise Lost," wading to find it through the 
infinite sand of his theology, and when we find it, it is always 
Paradise found. In the next place he was a master of poetic 
form, albeit he made occasional concessions to the popular jog- 
trot measures of the time. He was no experimenter in metres, 
but within the narrow range to which he deliberately confined him- 
self, he beat out a very noble music, a music, often, of deep organ 



65 

tones. If we are as sincere in our criticism as he was in his work, 
I think we shall agree that his best things, the things which greatly 
please us and affect us, are but few. " Thanatopsis,^' "The Forest 
Hymn,'' the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," "The 
Water Fowl," " June," " The Death of the Flowers," " The Rivulet " 
— not many more than these, but these of such pure perfection 
that we are entirely happy and content. 

" Whose part in all the pomp that fills 
The circuit of the summer hills, 
Is that his grave is green." 

I never call to mind that magic phrase without wishing that he 
might have had that little part of this majestic pomp. The monu- 
ment which marks his birthplace ought to mark his grave. But if 
he hasn't that he has a great deal more. There is no rock or 
stream, no tree or flower in all this country-side in which he has 
not a part. To look on these things is to think of him, their friend 
and lover, who made them so much more for us by. his im- 
perishable song. 

He was an American Bryant and he was emphatically a New 
England Bryant. 

Dante did not embody the mediaeval theology in his " Divina Com- 
media " more perfectly than Bryant embodied in his " Thanatopsis " 
the New England engagement with death "Memento Mori ! " His 
poem was a glorious expansion of that injunction which for two 
centuries had been the staple of New England sermons, hymns 
and prayers. But it was more than an expansion. It was a trans- 
figuration. It dwelt upon "the solemn decorations, all of the 
great tomb of man " with such a proud insistence that men 
enamored of their glorious beauty forgot the ruinous fatality about 
which it wound its various circumstance. 

Enjoined to think of death, they found themselves thinking of 
life, that great life of nature which does not decorate more solemnly 
and tenderly the great tomb of man, than it does his happy cradle 
and his spacious home. He sang the fleetingness of our humanity 



66 

and the stability of nature's course and frame. And lo ! the trees 
he loved hasten to their decay, and the hills they clothed with 
beauty are more perishable than the poems they inspired in his 
New England mind and heart. 

George W. Cable's place upon the programme was filled by an 
old-time song, "The Old Granite State," which was sung by John 
W. Hutchinson. 

After the singing of " The Oaks " by the chorus. President G. 
Stanley Hall, who in ripened experience and thoughtful methods 
shows the value of the sturdy independence of the New England 
training among our hills and farms, spoke as follows : — 



ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT G. STANLEY HALL. 

If love is the greatest thing in the world, as Christianity and the 
great biologers are now both telling us, and if nature is the all 
mother, then to truly love nature must be, if not itself the siuit- 
mum bonum, at least it must involve most of the virtue and bles- 
sings of life. 

I think Bryant was a true lover of nature. He said the poets 
fostered this taste in him, and that man is necessarily a naturalist. 
We talk, write and sing much of nature love, but alas most men 
are more strangers to her than the clergy tell us we are aliens from 
God, and our recent poetry of nature seems to me to be mostly the 
yeast of a degenerate muse. 

City life removes children from nature, and a careful inventory 
shows that they know little of the commonest objects and phe- 
nomena. The late report of the British commission showed that 
science teaching had relatively declined there in recent years, as it 
has in many places here. 

We exploit nature and use it for commercial ends, and what we 
thus utilize, we cease to worship. The methods of the field 
naturalist, and of primitive star-gazers, in the days when it was 
true that " the undevout astronomer is mad " have been super- 
seded by complex in-door laboratory methods. We approach 
nature through the mazes of microscopic technique. Probably 
never since the world stood have so small a proportion of the 
human race felt the power of nature. The beginning of better 
things is at hand. Gilbert White of Selborne, Audubon, Thoreau 
Richard Jeffries, and Hamilton Gibson, are being read, and the 
devoted little band of worshipers at Biologas' shrine have now great 
reason to hope again, although modern men and women have a 
long road to travel and very much yet to learn. 

Let us make an effort to look at this matter from the large 



68 

Aristotelian standpoint of the ''spectator of all time and all ex- 
istence." If we could rise to this higher common sense we should 
first realize, I think, that children and savages start with a right 
view of nature. Most children love collections, amulets and mas 
cots, and are little fetich worshipers and idolaters, and they must be 
so as the race has been, or 'else science and religion alike, which 
spring from this common root, will be built upon the sand. Chil- 
dren embrace trees, give them human attributes, and have cheap 
emotional life if they do not know flowers. Crocus, anemone, 
thyme and rue, jasmine, violet, primrose, daisy, daffodil, amaranth, 
poppy, eglantine, heliotrope, laurel, aspen, cypress — these and 
scores more are the language of the emotions. They are half 
epiphanies, yet veils to the great mysteries which they symbolize. 
Froebel saw the scheme of the kindergarten reflected to him as he 
gazed into the heart of a strange flower, half hypnotized by it 
for hours. 

So of birds, the slanderous cuckoo, the boding raven, the dove 
and nightingale, the bluebird, that violet of sound, the lark 
" clinking his fairy anvil " at Heaven's gate, the chattering pie, 
the eagle ; these, too, are parts of the language of the soul. 

The very name goshawk suggests the middle ages as bulbul 
does the orient. So insects, pets, domestic animals, and game are 
parts of the furniture of every child and savage soul, — as witness 
totemism and animal worship, and above all the phenomena of 
the heavens, clouds, storm, lightning, and sun and moon, which 
even Socrates worshiped as gods. In all this Arian, Norse and 
savage mythology, of which our literature is made, roots. 

Children, as abundant studies show, believe that animals, and 
even plants and things, feel and have suitable kinship with them. 
How deep this feeling is we had forgotten, but are just beginning 
to rediscover, as a lost link in the development of humanity. 
Here is the root period of science and religion, and neither can 
grow strong and mature unless the sentiments that underlie them 
are cultivated on nature. 



69 

The greater and higher anything is in the soul, the deeper its 
roots must strike. 

More love of nature would rescue science from mean and sordid 
commercialism, and reveal again its heart of nature out of which 
"rolled the burdens of the Bibles old." 

Archibald M. Howe, the grandson of Judge Samuel Howe — in 
whose office the poet made his first serious attempt at starting in 
life — and great-grandson of William Butler, who published the 
early childish poems of Bryant in the Gazette, spoke of the lawyer's 
phase of Bryant's life as follows : — 



ADDRESS OF ARCHIBALD M. HOWE. 

The procedure of our Massachusetts courts, and the methods of 
purchasing law hereabouts, had been established for a compara- 
tively short time, when William CuUen Bryant, a youth of nine- 
teen years, was reading law with a young lawyer nine years older, 
who for a few years had been practising his profession in Worth- 
ington or wherever he could meet court or clients with the aid of 
his horse and chaise. 

Soon after the adoption of the Massachusetts Constitution, 
followed Shays' Rebellion, which interfered with the regular course of 
court practice, and after that the General Court attempted to create 
by statute some newfangled shorthand method of procedure not 
unlike the attempts of the Populists in Western states, who would 
abolish lawyers. Joseph Hawley and John Worthington bad done 
much to create a system out of the chaos resulting from our revo- 
lution, and the change from the government of the king to the 
government by the people; but in Bryant's time the bar was 
obliged to rely upon few precedents, and to originate much. 
Whatever the Massachusetts bar might have clone, little was printed 
or accessible to the men who lived upon these beautiful hills. 

Our Massachusetts cases were printed in about twelve volumes ; 
to-day we have one hundred and sixty volumes of Supreme Court 
reports, A few black-letter law books were to be found here and 
there, and it is probable that Dane's abridgments may have been 
some aid. The few briefs that are preserved, show that the young 
lawyer of Plainfiield and Great Barrington must have depended 
upon his power to originate arguments and to investigate authori- 
ties that were largely English, and which he could apply to ques- 
tions raised in Massachusetts only by the most thorough knowl- 
edge of the fundamental principles of a constitution and of laws 
then being interpreted and tested for the first time. 

However sweet and true were the words of Bryant, written as 



71 

are the words of poets who have the closest relations with nature 
and whose lives seem to be inseparable from all that makes beauti- 
iul the hills and valleys of regions like this, I think we must 
believe that Bryant was greatly strengthened by his life as a 
lawyer facing every day of his life, for at least twelve years, and 
until his thirtieth year, the contests and many of the trials and 
sufferings of his fellow countrymen. 

Surely such discipline impressed upon his life more deeply than 
could the exercise of his poems of imagination, the true value of 
our new democracy, and whatever his deep sense of patriotism may 
have been, these early legal struggles must have impressed upon 
his mind the real value of the law as a means of contributing to 
the growth of the social order. 

The embargo and early restrictive legislation were strong rea- 
sons for his consideration of all enactments that would tend to 
obstruct trade needlessly, and formed the basis of his later advocacy 
of free trade. 

The few cases reported in the books which give us any information 
of Mr. Bryant's career as a lawyer, trying questions of law before 
the court of last resort, show that he did his share in thoroughly 
presenting all possible points to the court for its judgment ; that 
he used the older books, but that he used his reasoning as effect- 
ively as any of his brothers at the bar. 

I do not believe it is true that he left the profession because he 
was not sustained by the court in the case where he lost on a 
point of special pleading. The court treated him with great con- 
sideration, and he was entitled to a chance to maintain his suit. 
Such a statement about Mr. Bryant is not in accord with his 
nature. He left the law as a profession because he could give larger 
and more effective expression of his views of the laws of man, and 
of nature as an American editor, seated in a chair where few have 
ever sat in this country, the chair of a truly independent editor, 
with large views of his native country and his fellow countrymen, 
with a respect for progress through the aid of law in its highest sense, 
lav*? that he promoted and interpreted by his noble life, and with 



72 

the pen in the hand of a strong man fearing no one. The Evening 
Post presented to its readers views concerning a proper use of law 
that are as true of to-day as of the years and days when they were 
written, and any man who will attempt to belittle such opinions as 
the opinions of a theorist or a poet will have little to comfort him 
as true progress towards freedom is being made. You have heard 
to-day the words of men and women of noble lives and of rare 
power, expressing to you some of the charms of Bryant's poetry ; 
for every word we thank them. We who sit mute, or whose gifts 
are not such that we can express our deepest thoughts, look upward 
to these hills, wander through these groves of maple trees, and as 
our hearts beat quicker, say to ourselves that whatever strength these 
hills gave to the men of the earlier years of our century must not 
be lost in these later days. If " there were giants in those days," 
we will not allow American citizenship to belong to pigmies. 

Bryant, the American citizen, shall be the exemplar for many 
thousands of those who live to read his words, not as a poet only, 
but as a man who has lived the life of a lawyer of high ideals, an 
editor of transcendent manliness, and always of a private citizen of 
more power than many public men of high esteem. 

May I thank you, my fellow citizens of Cummington (though I do 
not know you personally), for allowing me to come before the good 
people of this neighborhood from an obscure city law office, to try 
to express in some measure the power for good that can come from 
the life of an upright lawyer. May we not hope in spite of all the 
temptations of the lawyer of to-day that patriotism may be again 
and again a stronger motive for the action of lawyers, and that 
the present disgraceful practices in Legislatures, which are pre- 
sented too often by lawyers, may soon be overthrown, if American 
citizens, who as lawyers or as laymen may learn from lives like 
William Cullen Bryant the value of the freedom that comes from 
respect for law. 



73 

James H. Eckels spoke for the town of Princeton, 111., its illus- 
trious citizen, John H. Br3'ant and his brothers who left the old 
homestead to become the pioneers of that Western town. 

Henry S. Gere, the veteran editor of the county paper, the 
Hampshire Gazette, which is the senior of Bryant by a few years, 
and shares with his poetry, the homage of the county people, gave 
the following sketch of Bryant's early connection with that paper : — 



ADDRESS OF HENRY S. GERE. 

An examination of the files of the Gazette from 1806 to 1815 
shows four of Mr. Bryant's poems. The first one appears in the 
issue of March 13, 1807. It has this introduction, probably given 
by the editor : "A Poem composed by a lad twelve years old, to be 
exhibited at the close of the winter school, in presence of the mas- 
ter, the minister o( the parish, and a number of private gentlemen.'' 

This poem bears the date of Cummington, February 19, 1807, 
and has the signature of C. B. 

In the Biographical Sketch of Mr. Bryant, published in 1880, it 
is stated that this poem was written in his tenth year, but as it bears 
the date of 1807, and was published in that year, it must have been 
written when he was in his thirteenth year or, as the caption says, 
" by a lad of twelve years." 

In the issue of January 17, 1810, appears the poem entitled 
" The Genius of Columbia." It is dated Cummington, January 
18, 1810, and the signature is W. C. B. 

In the paper of July 15, 1812, appears " An Ode for the Fourth 
of July " — Tune, " Ye Gentlemen of England." The editor intro- 
duces it in these words : "Want of room last week obliged us to 
delay the publication of the following elegant and patriotic ode, 
from the pen of Mr. William C. Bryant, son of Dr. Bryant of 
Cummington." 

In the paper of July 12, 1815, appears another ode by Mr. Bryant, 
with this introduction by the editor : " The following ode, the 
production of Mr. William C. Bryant, a young gentleman to whom 
we have been repeatedly indebted for his elegant and poetic effu- 
sions, was received at too late an hour to occupy the place it so 
well deserves in our festivals. We cannot, however, refrain from 
giving it to our readers." This ode consists of five stanzas, and 
was on the return of peace, the war between the United States 
and Great Britain having closed a short time previous. 



75 

There may have been other of Mr. Bryant's early poems pub- 
lished in the Gazette in those years, but they are not complete, and 
in some instances original poems were published without any signa- 
ture or date, to indicate their authorship. 

We stand to-day upon consecrated ground. In the language of 
President Lincoln on the battlefield of Gettysburg — " The world 
will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can 
never forget what he did here." He was the inspired poet 
of these hills. He roamed these fields, he traversed these for- 
ests, he climbed these rocks, he ascended and reascended these 
hills, until they became to him the dearest of friends. He drank 
from nature the essential spirit of poetry, an appreciation of its 
own wondrous beauty and completeness, and a deep reverence for 
the omnipotent power that created it. He found pleasure and 
companionship everywhere — in the fields, in the woods, by the 
streams, in the valleys, on the mountain tops. In the trees 
and the rocks, in the grasses and the flowers, in the growing crops 
and the ripened fruits, in the playfulness of youth, and the serenity 
of age, in the babbling brook and the starry heavens he found 
those sublime thoughts which illuminate his writings and make his 
name a sweet and enduring remembrance. 

Did he find enjoyment in the seclusion of these hills and the 
solitude of these forests t 

" There is a pleasure in the pathless woods ; 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore ; 
There is society where none intrudes, 
By the deep pool, and music in the roar 
Of foaming waters." 

He found them all, and more. He held communion with the 
visible forms of nature ; aye, and with the invisible. What makes 
the genuine poet .'' Not accident nor chance, nor caprice, nor 
freak. It is rather the touch of inspiration. 

" In the still air the music lies unheard ; 

In the rough marble beauty hides unseen ; 
To make the music, and the beauty, needs 
The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. 



76 

Great Master, touch us by thy skillful hand, 

Let not the music that is in us die ; 
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us, nor let 

Hidden and lost, thy form within us lie." 

It is a pleasure to believe that in the working out of the great 
problem of human development God selects and prepares his 
agents to do their appointed work. He gave us Washington to 
carry to a successful issue the War of the Revolution, to establish 
a nation founded upon the freedom and equality of man. He gave 
us Lincoln to guide the ship of state through the stormy years of 
the Rebellion, with that marvelous wisdom which has been and ever 
will be the admiration of mankind. He gave us Grant to lead 
the Union armies with that matchless skill and success which have 
been the wonder of the world. So in his own good time, he gave 
us Bryant, to sweeten, and broaden, and ennoble, and uplift, the 
minds and hearts of the people of the nation He founded and 
saved. He lived to see the full measure of his fame as a poet, as 
a philanthropist, as a journalist, as a statesman, as a patriot, as a 
man, spread over all the land. He lived to_see the full fruition of 
his labors as a coworker in the greatest philanthropic movement 
in the civilization of the age. He lived to pass " the bound of 
man's appointed years," and, in the fullness of time, like a shock 
of corn ripened unto the harvest. 

" Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done. 
Serenely to his final rest has passed ; 
While the soft memory of his virtues, yet 
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set." 

" And I am glad that he has lived thus long. 

And glad that he has gone to his reward ; 
Nor can I deem that nature did him wrong 

Softly to disengage the vital cord ; 
For, when his hand grew palsied, and his eye 
Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die." 



77 

The exercises closed with tlie singing of the following hymn to 
the tune " Uxbridge : " — 

" Our father; to Thy love we owe 
All that is fair and good below ; 
Life, and the health that makes life sweet 
Are blessings from thy mercy seat. 

" Oh, Giver of the quickening rain, 
Oh, Ripener of the golden grain, 
From Thee the cheerful day spring flows. 
Thy balmy evening brings repose. 

" Thy frosts arrest, Thy tempests chase 
The plagues that waste our helpless race, 
Thy softer breath, o'er land and deep 
Wakes nature from her winter sleep. 

" Yet deem we not that thus alone 
Thy bounty and Thy love are shown, 
For we have learned with higher praise 
And holier names to speak Thy ways." 



Bryant. 



L.ofC. 



CHILDREN'S MEMORIAL EXERCISES. 



PROGRAMME. 

1. Opening Hymn, "The Love of God is over all His Works." 

Read by Mrs. M. C. Stutson. 

2. Addr£S.s. . . . . • . . W. W. Ofcutt. 



Memorial Paper. . 

Composition. 

June. 

Valedictory Address. 

Forest Hymn. 



Miss Fanny L. Rogers. 

Grace Shaw. 

Clara Snow. 

. Will R. Lyman. 

Annie Stevens. 



8. Innocent Child with the snow-white fluwer. Alfred R. Packard. 
g. Memorial Extracts. 

Edith Sireeter. Elsie Packard. Marcia Jenkins. Arthur Packard. 

Fred Randall. George Whitmarsh. Harry McCoy. 

Lena Shaw. 

10. Hymn. . . . . • ■ ' ■ ■ Whittier. 

11. Thanatopsis. ...... Lena Packard. 

12. Bryant's Address to the Sunday School at West Cummington. 

Nellie Bryant. 

13. The Hurricane. ..... P'rnest Sears. 

14. Robert of Lincoln. ..... Flora Packard. 

15. The Rivulet. ...... Herbert Streeter. 

16. Battle Hymn OF the Republic. . . . Julia Ward Howe, 

17. Julia Ward Howe's Poem, "The Flag," recited by Edith Streeter, 

in honor of the author, vi^ho is expected to be present. 



79 

We arrived at Cummington in time to take supper and to attend 
a children's concert at the village church. There was a local 
orchestra of four or five pieces, and a chorus, both of which also 
took part in the exercises next day ;. and there were recitations 
from Bryant's poems and compositions by the children, all under 
the management of a tireless young lady resident. Looking at the 
children as they were grouped in the front pews, I was struck by 
the preponderance of pure New England types, such a collection of 
which I had not seen in twenty years, or before familar districts in 
New England were involved by foreign immigration. So I was 
not surprised next day to learn from Mr. Tower's admirable address 
that "the town is still one of pure New England stock, and out of 
two hundred voters, only three are not of American birth, . . , 
It is still a farming community, as it was a hundred years ago, and 
the farmers win a scanty living from rebellious soil." To me this 
children's concert, with its manifestation of the pure, native stock, 
was the most interesting feature of the Bryant Centenary. 

Arthur Stedman, in " The Dial." 



BRYANT MEMORIAL COMMITTEE. 

J. Wesley Gurney, President. 
Henrietta S. Nahmer, Secretary. 
William H. Shaw, Treasurer. 
William W. Orcutt. 
Lorenzo H. Tower. 



